Russia: Government Election Webcams

“Although not much can be seen, Muscovites have finally seen Russia,” write bloggers describing election webcams [ru] installed by Rostelecom company following the Dec. 2011 election. Although video capturing had not been possible initially, users developed an application [ru] to record broadcasts. Users of imageboard 2ch.so self-organized to hunt for funny videos, but instead of lulz, they found some election violations (although some funny moments were also recorded [ru]).

This post is part of RuNet Echo, a Global Voices project to interpret the Russian language internet. All Posts · Read more »

Written byAlexey Sidorenko

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4 comments

Pingback: Russia: 11 Areas of Election-Related ICT Innovation · Global Voices

[…] can be found here [en]). Despite this, the cameras allowed to spot numerous violations (1, 2) […]

7 March 2012, 10:50 am
Pingback: Innovation and Counter-Innovation: Digital Resistance in Russia | iRevolution

[…] “Following an order from Putin, the state communication company Rostelecom developed a website webvybory2012.ru, which allowed people to follow the majority of the Russian polling stations (some 95,000) online on the day of the March 4 presidential election. Every polling station was equipped with two cameras: one has to be focused on the ballot box and the other has to give the general picture of the polling station. Once the voting was over, one of the cameras broadcasted the counting of the votes. The cost of this project is at least 13 billion rubles (around $500 million). Many bloggers have criticized this system, claiming that it creates an imitation of transparency, when actually the most common election violations cannot be monitored through webcameras (more detailed analysis can be found here). Despite this, the cameras allowed to spot numerous violations (1, 2).” […]

9 March 2012, 20:43 pm
Pingback: Russia: 11 Areas of Election-Related ICT Innovation | SNID- Master in Social Networks Influence Design

[…] can be found here [en]). Despite this, the cameras allowed to spot numerous violations (1, 2) […]

13 March 2012, 9:36 am
Pingback: 11 Areas of Election-Related Innovation in Russia » OWNI.eu, News, Augmented

[…] Every polling station was equipped with two cameras: one has to be focused on the ballot box and the other has to give the general picture of the polling station. Once the voting was over, one of the cameras broadcasted the counting of the votes. The cost of this project is at least 13 billion rubles (around $500 million). Many bloggers have criticized this system, claiming that it creates an imitation of transparency, when actually the most common election violations cannot be monitored through webcameras (more detailed analysis can be found here). Despite this, the cameras allowed to spot numerous violations (1, 2). […]

14 March 2012, 14:11 pm

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