Millions of Russians were glued to a YouTube platform that was notorious for outrageous viral videos. Then hackers revealed that it was being secretly financed by the Kremlin. This story is part of a documentary series, InterNYET, by Current Time that explores the history of the Russian web.
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.
LiveJournal was founded in Seattle, but became the go-to platform for Russian activists. Then the Kremlin hit back, heralding a wider crackdown on Internet freedom. This story is part of Current Time's documentary series InterNYET: A History Of The Russian Internet.
Russia bucked global trends with two homegrown social media that are more popular there than Facebook. Both were backed by the same Israeli-Russian billionaire tech investor. This story is part of Current Time TV's documentary series InterNYET, exploring the history of the Russian web.
Born in a former Soviet research institute, Rambler was Russia's most popular website in the 1990s and was sold for more than $230 million in 2004. But the site was eclipsed by a dynamic new search engine, and its creator counted his profits in the tens of thousands of dollars.
In the 1980s, a Soviet computer scientist headed for Moscow with U.S. software tapes hidden under his clothes. Three decades later, his colleagues gathered at a California dinner party to reminisce about how they built the first internet in the U.S.S.R. Their story is part of a new seven-part documentary series, InterNYET: A History Of The Russian Internet, by Current Time TV exploring the history of the Russian web.
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.
