Vladimir Putin's Kremlin: A Rogue Regime
Filed under: Russia
The Moscow Times reports today on the progress of a new legislative proposal in the Russian parliament, which is now formally a rubber stamp for the dictator Vladimir Putin, without one single true opposition member in the whole body.
This new proposal, the MT states, "would force owners of web sites with more than 1,000 hits per day to register as mass media outlets."
Publius Pundit, in other words, would qualify for restriction under this new law, if it were served from Russia. We'd suddenly become subject to massive governmental regulation, just as if George Bush became the supervisor of the Daily Kos. Putin has already crushed all opposition in parliament, taken over all national TV broadcasts, and crushed the life out of the country's print media -- to say nothing of seizing the power to appoint local government executives. But he's such a pathetic and cowardly little troll that it's not enough for him. He just can't stand the idea that some little blogger is giving him hell, even if only 1,000 people are reading it each day.
If we were in Russia, rules would be imposed upon us, arcane and Byzantine rules nobody can understand, violations of which can be found at the drop of a hat, with heavy fines or jail terms dispensed as punishment. First the oil industry, now the Internet.
Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov supports the measure, and its sponsor's spokesperson says: "A bill is currently being prepared and will be submitted to the State Duma before the end of June. We are not trying to control the Internet. We just want journalists to play by the rules and show responsibility for whatever they publish on the Internet."
It's always particularly galling to hear these denials from the Kremlin, because the implication is that, if the Kremlin were seeking to strangle Internet criticism of the Kremlin, it would say so. It's an offense to the intelligence of your average turnip to suggest such a thing.
Naturally, plenty of propaganda spilled out about how implementing such a regulation would be "impossible," so there's nothing to worry about. That's the classic Kremlin tactic. Get folks to lower their guards, then get the thing on the books without protest, just like the now-infamous Law Against Extremism. Make plenty of promises about how you'll be reasonable, and hope everybody forgets that you don't want to regulate every single blog, only those tiny few who aggressively criticize the regime and draw a wide audience. That, of course, is quite a manageable task.
If you look to the column at the right, you can read more (in translation, from the Russian press) about how Dictator Putin is destroying the last vestige of freedom in Russia, the nation's nascent Internet resource.
del.icio.us | 
digg | 
technorati | 
stumble upon | 
furl | 
reddit