YouTube has grown to be the most popular website on the Russian Internet, but the Kremlin wants to take steps to limit its influence. Government critics are using the platform to voice their political opinions and can reach audiences on a scale similar to government-controlled TV stations. Yet the question remains: Will the authorities actually be able to hold back this online wave of opinion? The final episode of Andrey Loshаk’s InterNYET series looks at the YouTube phenomenon in Russia.
The Ukraine crisis coincided with a Russian crackdown on independent online media. New laws since then have brought new restrictions, and the Internet adviser to President Vladimir Putin tells Current Time that China is the model for further online regulation. This story is part of a documentary series, InterNYET, by Current Time that explores the history of the Russian web.
Police detained the head of one of Russia's doctors' unions as she came to help colleagues barricaded inside a rural tuberculosis clinic set for closure. The protest is part of a wider battle to save dwindling rural health care services in Russia.
Vladimir Balukh and Oleksiy Sizonovych were part of Russia and Ukraine's landmark September 7 exchange of 70 prisoners, seen by many as a step toward reducing hostility between the two countries. But for both men, their freedom does not mean they are home yet: Balukh is from annexed Crimea and Sizonovych from separatist-controlled Luhansk. With other Ukrainians still in Russian prisons, the two hope to use their freedom to spread the word about "what's really happening" in Crimea and Donbas.
The head of a prison in the Russian region of Karelia denied charges that staff had abused inmates -- until a video surfaced this month showing a brutal beating. Several prisoners say one of the attackers seen in the footage is the prison chief himself.
Their impact stretches beyond the 2016 U.S. presidential election that made them an international household name. Russian trolls, says blogger Ilya Varlamov, have changed “the whole picture” for online news in Russia. But how did they do it? In this video, taken from Current Time’s InterNYET: A History Of The Russian Internet series, former employees at a St. Petersburg troll factory get down to specifics.
A Russian lawyer and human rights activist has been found guilty of attacking police and fined 30,000 rubles ($468) by a Krasnodar court in connection with his detention while he was trying to provide legal advice to protesters being taken into police custody at an anti-government rally a year ago.
A series of one-person pickets have been held across the Russian capital in support of an opposition activist sentenced to four years in prison for repeatedly taking part in unauthorized rallies.
Current Time TV's Form #087 mini-series on the lives of transgender Russians has been nominated for Best Representation on Screen at the 2019 Content Innovation Awards on October 13. In this interview, series creator Yekaterina Ponomaryova, a Russian documentary filmmaker, explains how she came up with the idea for the series and why, despite pervasive negative stereotypes, tolerance toward transgenders runs strongest in Russia's provinces.
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