Russia Criminalizes Blogging

Russia has adopted a law that will punish with fines and prison sentences bloggers who express opinions that are not approved by the government. Every company that offers a blogging platform or a discussion forum is obligated to keep all records of who said what and transfer these records to the state investigative services whenever needed.

Bloggers will also be punished for comments left by anonymous commenters on their blogs that do not reflect the official views on history and politics. Everybody becomes a snitch and a censor of everybody else. The alternative is to become a criminal.

Anonymous blogging is also now criminalized. All bloggers will be put on a registry and their activities will be monitored. The hilarious part of this law is that it obligated foreign online services (such as, say, WordPress, YouTube or Facebook) to participate in identifying Russian bloggers and spying on their verbal communications. The law doesn’t specify what will happen to WordPress for not snitching on bloggers and refusing to censor them, but it is quite clear: access to such web sites on the territory of Russia will be shut down, just like it’s done in China.

It is especially hilarious that this comes only a few days after Snowden gave Putin an opportunity to market himself as a defender of true freedom. Now, I hear, Snowden is making noises to the effect that he didn’t mean for his question to be so helpful to Putin. Of course, he must have thought that Putin would hear his question and exclaim, “God, you’re right, I’m such a tyrant! You just made me realize that I should stop oppressing people, incarcerating peaceful protesters, destroying freedom of speech and promoting fascist ideology! Thank you, you changed my life with your insightful question!”