Back to the Past in Russia ‘Putin Now Censors and totally Controls the Internet’

                                                                         

 The Royal Putin

                                                                     

It was very clear how Russia’s Putin took over control of the printed media in Russia and the Magazines coming in from the outside. Everything had to be a positive story about this new emerging dictator in the world stage. 

Eventually everyone got used to it, after all what could the Russian people do? Vote him out? Dictators cannot be voted out because there is no fair elections that could unseat him like in most countries that that hold fair elections. 

The papers that were close in Moscow and the world media at large probably thought that there was a new medium which he would not be able to control. This was so in the upcoming world wide web and many believe that the beginning of the internet might have helped fuel the “Arab Spring.” I don’t know if that is true but I do know that at the time most nations that were connected to the internet, more than one view of the world appeared. In many cases the world would be told something by the government but the smarter population who got to understand this new communications medium could see it was not so. That was the magic of the Internet. Someone like Putin could say that Russia was economically ahead of the whole world and the Russian people needed just to eat less, get less medical care and diminished living standards etc., because the world was so much worse. Russians should consider themselves lucky. Unfortunedly technology which gave us the Internet is given the governments that have a hold and control on their populations a means to filter, control and blocked a lot of the content. Not all content, as I will explain below but all the above board wire or cable Internet is proven to be an easy target to just preach one voice, one view point, one set of lies. 

For Countries that don’t have citizens with equipment to go wireless and connect through the satellites or neighboring or global broadcasters which can be access through the new generation of smart phones. For those People not capable of finding alternative means to find out what is going on in the world anything that offends the red blooded king {Putin}will be blocked! 

Andrej Martirosjan writes on New East Platform the following:

The emergence of new media and increased number of people using the Internet in Russia was giving hopes, that it will contribute to certain freedoms. It actually did in some senses. For instance, people could finally visit websites of various Russian parties, which do not usually receive any attention on television. Also, it was the Internet, what provided Russian citizens with an access to alternative news websites such as newsru.com and grani.ru established by the exiled oligarchs Berezovsky and Gusinsky. Furthermore, the Internet provided various politicians and activists with an opportunity to actually be heard. There are many Russian blogs registered at livejournal.com and a large number of them help to organize growing youth organizations against Putin. However, the Kremlin already understood the danger of new media and Internet and took certain measures to combat it such as creating counter-forces to youth organizations against Putin in the form of pro- Kremlin youth organizations like Nashi. These forces grow every day and again cause a problem for the freedom of the media in Russia.

[Luke Johnson on http://www.rferl.org] in 2014:

"There's a protective effect because every one of those represents something that you would have to turn off in order to completely sever the country from the Internet," Cowie says.
Egypt has fewer than 10 of these connections, while Syria has just two. This made it easier for those governments to switch off the Internet.
What are the specifics that make this more or less difficult in Russia?
Russia does not lack for connectivity to the outside world. There are more than 300 companies that have purchased connectivity from outside the country, Cowie says.
The Russian government would have to force all of these providers to shut down to fully sever itself from the Internet. It could be done, but it would take a lot longer and be much more labor-intensive.
What are Russia's options to restrict Internet usage, short of a shutdown?
An alternative to shutting down the Internet is by filtering content.
Russia has already blocked several opposition websites and passed a law requiring registration by some bloggers.
Moscow has also indicated that foreign Internet companies will have to comply with its laws. Roskomnadzor, Russia's media regulator, sent a notice to Facebook, Twitter, and Google requiring them to comply with a law to register with the agency and store six months of archives of metadata on Russian soil.
The Russian government could also shut off the Internet in certain regions or cities, says Cowie. The telecommunications giant Rostelecom has been recentralized after a breakup into smaller regional firms in the 1990s, a move that could make a partial shutdown easier.
What are ways that users could get around an Internet shutdown or Internet controls?
Internet users could turn to their smartphones’ Internet access via 3G[ You now have 4G androids and iPhone and others that will give you a fast connection] if mobile carriers were still operational while ISPs were shuttered.
Dial-up Internet would also be an option for those with an international phone line, albeit at a much-reduced speed -- and a much higher cost. European dial-up providers offered their services to Egyptians during its 2011 Internet shutdown and provided connections while Egypt's ISPs were shuttered.
Short of a full shutdown, there are already technologies available that evade content filtering and monitoring. One already in use is Tor, a network of virtual encrypted tunnels that make a user's movements opaque to tracking by an ISP or other third party.
In other words, instead of information coming directly from your computer to an opposition website, the information travels across encrypted connections through a series of other servers before reaching the final destination.

We can see how thin skin Putin is when he has blocked for the second time(that we know of) this publication from reaching Russians that usually read it. In many weeks the readership from Russia is only has been surpassed by that in the United States where this blog originates. What a dangerous absurb picture does this make? This is a small publication which is never been intended to be anything but non profit(is never made any money) the only that it does is provide the truth through well known sources and other publications and sometimes our own view of the world and people.

We publish about Putin a few times a month. The last time was to make the case that Trump, who is running for US President and Putin like each other. They would probably be buddies at the expense of the US if he (Trump) won. Why we say that? Putin is said he would like Trump to win (interfering with US internal affairs??) and Trump has said he likes Putin. Trump likes pump and pageantry and if you watch Putin in his castle and his honor guard he is very much like Trump. Trump is thin skinned and does not like questions or criticism and so is Putin. The story we posted talked very little about Putin and much about Trump but that most have offended Putin because we were cut off from the Russian readers before we could post anything else.  Imagine a leader deciding what the populace reads!

People in this country are used to criticizing and questioning our leaders and those that want to be leaders because that is the only way to get to know them. We’ve never had a king or dictator here and we don’t believe in them. One would think that the strength of any man is based on how much he can take. Putin taken one light punch from a little,  little guy like us and he stops the game and goes home to hide. A shame!

Adam Gonzalez