Stories from RuNet Echo from January, 2012

Russia, Syria: Anti- and Pro-Assad Facebook Comment Attack

  31 January 2012

Facebook pages of some Russian media outlets (e.g., Afisha, Bolshoi Gorod, Esquire Russia, Channel 1, MTV Russia) were deluged with copy-pasted comments [ru, ar] from users who appeared to be supporters of the Syrian opposition earlier today. An excerpt from a typical comment [ru, ar]: “Syria's regime is killing people...

Russia: Community of Election Observers Launched

  24 January 2012

Creators of popular citizen crowdsourcing projects RosYama and RosPil Alexey Navalny and Georgiy Alburov launch a new project RosVybory [ru], a community of election observers. Users submit their data to the website, then project moderators apply for the necessary observer documents and send registered users to the nearby voting ballots.

“Russia Without Fools,” a Crowdsourced Feedback Portal Launched

  23 January 2012

A committee of supporters of president Dmitry Medvedev had launched a crowdsourcing citizens-to-government feedback portal “Russia Without Fools” [ru] that allows to submit cases of officials’ stupidity or abuse. So far, the cases can be submitted freely and censorship hasn't been reported. Dmitry Ternovskiy, popular photoblogger, however, notes [ru] that...

Russia: Line to a Drug Dealer in Novosibirsk

  19 January 2012

YouTube user Pepsick80 publishes a video [ru] of a drug dealer's selling point in Novosibirsk (city in Siberia). Several tens of cars and drug users standing in the line to buy drugs can be seen on the video. The voice behind the camera is utterly surprised and angry that there's...

Russia: Choosing Blogger of the Year

  16 January 2012

LiveJournal started online voting [ru] in several nominations trying to identify the most important events in the Russian blogosphere. Voting, however, couldn't avoid controversy, as “Blogger of the Year” nomination [ru] didn't include many activists, Alexey Navalny among others. Sergey Muhammedov decided to start alternative voting [ru] that included much...

Russia: Social Networks Mobilise Society

  13 January 2012

Facebook, the possibility to calculate numbers of protest participants, slogans from the Internet, a wide variety of gadgets - these are four new important factors in the analysis of demonstrations in Russia. Marina Litvinovich reports.

Belarus: Running for Office or Not

  11 January 2012

Sergei Balykin at Belorusski Partizan discusses [ru] the pros and cons of running for public office in the authoritarian regime of Lukashenko's Belarus, based on his own campaign experience from local elections in the Minsk region.

Russia: Pictures from the Rocket Factory

  8 January 2012

Blogger Lana Sator publishes [ru] pictures from NPO Energomash, a rocket factory situated near Moscow that specializes on producing liquid propellant rocket engines. Sator with her friend, had been sneaking into the factory for 5 nights in a row, due to a ‘complete lack of security.’ Pictures remind us one...

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