Blogosphere under attack as election looms
by Nina Achmatova
The blogging platform LiveJournal has suffered yet another hacker attack less than a week from elections. This is the main platform in Russia for the free circulation of ideas and dissident voices.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - The Russian blogosphere is once again under attack with one week to the parliamentary elections, while the Internet continues to be the only true space for voices of dissent. According to Ria Novosti, the blogging platform LiveJournal (LJ), which publishes some of the most influential and followed Russian blogs, suffered another heavy attack (DDoS acronym for denial of service) last November 28th after those already registered in April and July this year. SUP Mtdia, the agency that runs the service, confirmed the incident which blocked access to the site for several hours.
Rustam Adagamov, one of the most famous Zh Zh bloggers (as Russian Live Journal is known, taken from its Cyrillic initials) sees the attack as an attempt to muzzle the Internet less than a week before elections for the Duma, the Lower House of Parliament.
During the April attacks, the UAS requested the authorities to prosecute the hackers responsible. Even President Dmitri Medvedev, who loves social networks, demanded justice. But nothing has happened since then.
ZhZh publishes six of the seven of the most influential blogs in Russia. And the most embarrassing for the Kremlin. According to rankings compiled by Globalvoiceonline.org, the most popular is Alexei Navalny, renamed the Russian Julian Assange for having revealed, with documented proof, numerous cases of corruption in public administration. It is he who coined Putin’s United Russia as the "party of thieves and swindlers", once favored in the polls, but now seeing a sharp decline in support after years above the 60% threshold.
Twitter to YouTube, Vkontakte (the Russian Facebook) RuNet, the network that writes in Cyrillic, are all now full of parody and satire against the Putin-Medvedev tandem. Forbidden on TV and newspapers, popular discontent has found an outlet on the web which is reflected in a hemorrhage of consensus never before experienced by United Russia. The ruling party could lose two-thirds majority of seats in the Duma at the December 4 elections in favor of the communists and nationalists. According to sociologists a new public perception has converged on the web and in the future it will increasingly impact on national policy. The Federal Agency for the media believes that 24% of Russians now access information exclusively through the internet. "Almost a quarter of citizens is a very significant number for a country like Russia," said the director of the Agency, Mikhail Seslavinsky.
And the figure is expected to grow according to a study by Comscore, Russia is the first country in Europe for number of Internet users (50.8 million). A fact that Putin, who termed online content "pornography", will have to take into account.
Rustam Adagamov, one of the most famous Zh Zh bloggers (as Russian Live Journal is known, taken from its Cyrillic initials) sees the attack as an attempt to muzzle the Internet less than a week before elections for the Duma, the Lower House of Parliament.
During the April attacks, the UAS requested the authorities to prosecute the hackers responsible. Even President Dmitri Medvedev, who loves social networks, demanded justice. But nothing has happened since then.
ZhZh publishes six of the seven of the most influential blogs in Russia. And the most embarrassing for the Kremlin. According to rankings compiled by Globalvoiceonline.org, the most popular is Alexei Navalny, renamed the Russian Julian Assange for having revealed, with documented proof, numerous cases of corruption in public administration. It is he who coined Putin’s United Russia as the "party of thieves and swindlers", once favored in the polls, but now seeing a sharp decline in support after years above the 60% threshold.
Twitter to YouTube, Vkontakte (the Russian Facebook) RuNet, the network that writes in Cyrillic, are all now full of parody and satire against the Putin-Medvedev tandem. Forbidden on TV and newspapers, popular discontent has found an outlet on the web which is reflected in a hemorrhage of consensus never before experienced by United Russia. The ruling party could lose two-thirds majority of seats in the Duma at the December 4 elections in favor of the communists and nationalists. According to sociologists a new public perception has converged on the web and in the future it will increasingly impact on national policy. The Federal Agency for the media believes that 24% of Russians now access information exclusively through the internet. "Almost a quarter of citizens is a very significant number for a country like Russia," said the director of the Agency, Mikhail Seslavinsky.
And the figure is expected to grow according to a study by Comscore, Russia is the first country in Europe for number of Internet users (50.8 million). A fact that Putin, who termed online content "pornography", will have to take into account.
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