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.
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.
This seven-episode series by Russian journalist Andrey Loshak takes a look at the development of the Russian Internet, or RuNet, and how it has changed over time.
Has a low-profile group of Czech teachers, doctors, students, and other volunteers hit on an effective way to stop Russian disinformation in the EU?
Seventeen-year-old Ibragim Belgych attends school in the mornings and connects his neighbors in the Kyrgyz mountain village of Suusamyr to a community Internet network in the afternoons. He is the only person on hand to do the job.
Yury Dromashko got into bitcoin mining when he was going through tough times a few years ago. Now he runs one of the largest cryptocurrency-producing operations in Russia.
