On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 12:23 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <[email protected]>wrote:
> On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:22:12 +0100, Thomas Morton wrote: > >> On 9 July 2012 20:41, Milos Rancic <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> In less than half an hour Russian Wikipedia will go on one-day strike >>> against SOPA/PIPA-like law in Russia [1] (in Russian). >>> >>> >> Unless I am missing something key; whilst this is a crappy law, it is not >> much like SOPA/PIPA in that it doesn't seem to threaten the existence of >> Russian Wikipedia. >> >> Comparatively; when some ISPs in the UK blacklisted The Pirate Bay at the >> behest of the government we didn't black Wikipedia out over it. >> >> > Ok, let me may be provide a bit of a background. > > 1) The law is formally directed against child pornography, drug > trafficking, hate between religions etc. The idea is that every website > (whatever it means) where information violating the law has been discovered > will get a one-day notice to remove the info, and if it fails to do so, the > access to the whole website will be blocked by all providers legally > operating in Russia. On paper, nothing in this law threats Wikipedia and > sister projects. > > 2) There is no political freedom in Russia, and courts are not > independent. Therefore many people are afraid that once the law is in force > (tomorrow it must be voted in the second hearing, and the third hearing in > September is typically automatic) that it may become an instrument for > central and local authorities to shut down access to internet sites at will > claiming they advertise something listed in the law. Russian Wikipedia is > not the only organization which raised such objections; another is for > instance the Presidential Council on Hyman Rights (the suggestions of this > council are typically get ignored despite its affiliation with the > president), or the National Broadcasters Associations. > > 3) It is widely expected that the protest is going to be completely > ignored. Indeed, the blackout has been reported in media, with both the > minister of telecommunications and the vice-speaker of parliament > explaining that the law has no threat for Wikipedia, and will not be > amended. > > 4) The discussion on Russian Wikipedia was initiated yesterday morning by > Stanislav Kozlovsky, the executive director of wm.ru. (He never wrote > anything in his wm.ru role, and I believe the chapter was not involved in > any way). First nothing happened, but in the late evening there was the > blackout suggestion coming. Eventually, around 10pm it was transferred into > a RFC, which was closed at 11pm since the number of votes for the blackout > was clearly exceeding the votes against the blackout. No attempt was made > top analyze the arguments, it was just a hasty majority decision. From what > I know, no consultations with external parties were held. In contrast to > the en.wp blackout, the mobile version of ru.wp is available now. > > Cheers > Yaroslav Thanks. The Guardian seems to be first out the door with its coverage: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/10/russian-wikipedia-shut-down-protest They link to this article for further background: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/15/kremlin-purge-russia-internet-western-influences?intcmp=239 _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
