LiveJournal: not a bastion of freedom and democracy in Russia
Regarding the distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks on LiveJournal:
I'm completely baffled by a viewpoint I'm seeing in the blogosphere: that LiveJournal is a bastion of political freedom and free speech in Russia.
--SUP is not politically neutral. It is owned by Alexander Mamut and Yury Milner, billionaire pals of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.
--LiveJournal has tremendous market penetration in Russia, which is why the Russian company SUP purchased it.
--When SUP bought LiveJournal, it was seen as a disaster by political opponents of Russia's current government.
--Political opponents in Russia use LiveJournal as their platform for the same reason people in the U.S. use FaceBook for social networking: it's the biggest game in town. There is nothing remotely democracy-loving about Russia's LiveJournal, or its billionaire owners; it's simply all Russians have to work with.
--It is not yet known: who is behind the DDOS attacks; what/whom the attacks are targeting; what the attackers hope to accomplish.
*comments are screened
I'm completely baffled by a viewpoint I'm seeing in the blogosphere: that LiveJournal is a bastion of political freedom and free speech in Russia.
--SUP is not politically neutral. It is owned by Alexander Mamut and Yury Milner, billionaire pals of Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.
--LiveJournal has tremendous market penetration in Russia, which is why the Russian company SUP purchased it.
--When SUP bought LiveJournal, it was seen as a disaster by political opponents of Russia's current government.
--Political opponents in Russia use LiveJournal as their platform for the same reason people in the U.S. use FaceBook for social networking: it's the biggest game in town. There is nothing remotely democracy-loving about Russia's LiveJournal, or its billionaire owners; it's simply all Russians have to work with.
--It is not yet known: who is behind the DDOS attacks; what/whom the attacks are targeting; what the attackers hope to accomplish.
*comments are screened