This article was originally published on Global Voices here. America’s controversial Stop Online Piracy Act is back—and it’s poised to become law in a matter of weeks. SOPA, however, isn’t coming to the United States, where a wide coalition of Internet companies, human rights organizations, and concerned citizens defeated the legislation with a massive protest campaign in …
Continue reading ‘Orphaned in US, SOPA Finds Home in Russia’ »
This article was originally published on Global Voices here. Brace yourself. The cyberwar is coming. Since last week, when the world learned about PRISM, a vast and secret American electronic surveillance program, Russian state officials have expressed renewed concerns about foreign social networks posing a national security threat. One day after news of the U.S. program …
Continue reading ‘PRISM Infects Russia with Cyberwar Scare’ »
This article was originally published on Global Voices here. It looks like Pavel Durov can finally return to Russia without a prison sentence threatening from overhead. That, for the moment anyway, seems to be true, now that St. Petersburg detectives have closed their inquiry [ru] into Durov’s alleged involvement in an April 5, 2013, traffic accident that left …
Continue reading ‘Pavel Durov Is Not Going to Prison (For Now)’ »
This article was originally published on Global Voices here. When Moscow’s civil society exploded after national elections 18 months ago, pouring tens of thousands of protesters into the streets and electrifying a nascent class of Internet-connected “creatives,” it seemed to the world that the Putin regime was for the first time faltering. Demonstrators gathered throughout …
Continue reading ‘The Moscow Mayoral Election Will Test Russia’s Internet Culture’ »
This article was originally published on Global Voices here. As Vladimir Putin “turns the screws” on Russian public life in his third presidential term, Russian civil society is increasingly a repository for the ideologists and movers-and-shakers of an earlier age of Kremlin statecraft. Weeks ago, after the ouster of Vladislav Surkov (Moscow’s “grey cardinal”), observers from …
Continue reading ‘The “Brave” Democrats of Russia’s Growing Civil Society’ »
This article was originally published on Global Voices here. In 1945, following a visit by the USSR’s Dynamo soccer team, George Orwell wrote that sports are “war minus the shooting.” He also said that “serious” sports have “nothing to do with fair play.” Earlier today, May 21, 2013, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov seemed to echo this …
Continue reading ‘Laughing at Russia’s Eurovision Shooting Spirit’ »
Yours truly has been very busy at Global Voices over the past month. Since my last AGT post, I have authored six new pieces at RuNet Echo: 15 May 2012, Russia: Duma Deputy Wants Criminal Liability for Extremist Tweets 11 May 2012, Russia: Yavlinsky Stir Reveals Opposition Rift 7 May 2012, Russia: Violence Plunges Opposition into Debate About …
Yours truly has published two recent posts to Global Voices’ RuNet Echo project. You can find them here: (10 April 2012) Russia: Astrakhan Becomes Opposition’s New Rallying Cause (13 April 2012) Russia: Ilya Varlamov, Omsk’s Blogger-Mayor?