"Residents adjusted. They created an intracity computer network that, among other things, allowed locals to download pirated movies and TV shows without connecting to the wider web. Going on vacation, several said, meant sitting in a hotel room, updating smartphone apps and taking in the bounties of the online world, even if the beach beckoned."
This is just really confusing to me. I had no idea that propaganda was so resurgent in Russia. I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west".
I think of Russians as being active participants on the Internet; I would have thought that this would keep a bit of a lid on single-point-of-view propaganda. (Obviously there's plenty of misinformation on the internet, but it's not all from a single political view)
Why is Russia pushing so hard to spread Internet access in such a situation?
Russian media is mostly state-owned, and independent journalists are jailed for speaking out against the current regime. The government is in the process of trying to emulate China's Great Firewall.
The country is in a state of disarray, where the oligarchs are getting hit with sanctions, oil sales are dwindling, and the only way to maintain the status quo is to keep the public focused on an outside enemy, which currently is Ukraine.
I don't know why they would expand access, but they might just use it to feed the populace more propaganda.
I believe Russian media does exaggerate about US problems. But just as well, I also believe US media exaggerates about Russian problems too.
Paraphrasing your post, I could also say US mainstream media is indirectly state-controlled, and independent journalists are fired or discredited for speaking out against the current regime.
I really hope we all could move ahead of this Cold-War mentality, that puts the whole world in danger of a nuclear holocaust.
There's a degree of state influence on the US media, but turn on any news site and you'll see criticism of the current regime. I'm speaking as a Ukrainian immigrant who sometimes tunes into Russian news, where they call me a Nazi and say I'm a threat to the Russian way of life. I don't give a shit about US/Russia relations, but if you wanna talk about China and their human rights violations, Russia is a close second.
"I could also say US mainstream media is indirectly state-controlled, and independent journalists are fired or discredited for speaking out against the current regime."
I guess you was downvoted for that phrase which can't be true /s
> Why is Russia pushing so hard to spread Internet access in such a situation?
The authorities fully recognize the utility value of it, in terms of productivity, communication and economy broadly.
So in line with that they're simultaneously crafting the beginnings of Russia's version of the Chinese firewall (some have taken to calling it Runet for short; Runet used to be a more generic term referring to sites primarily popular with Russians):
"Putin signs law to create an independent Russian internet"
"So in line with that they're simultaneously crafting the beginnings of Russia's version of the Chinese firewall"
What they actually doing is making sure that their internal internet based infrastructure does not depend on what POTUS de jour feel like. Russia once had been threatened to be cut off from the Visa and other financial services and that had led them to create their own payment system. After the lesson like this one has to be the ultimate fool to leave one of the most important infrastructure to be controlled by foreign entities.
Trying to spin it as Russia vs democracy is just a propaganda on it's own.
The independence of infrastructure is the stated goal.
But I doubt it's the main one. They've been trying to shut down opposition political commentary[0] by forcing them to move outside of the .ru domain. The next step is to limit the access to non-ru TLDs since they can't control those.
[0] For example, grani.ru had to move to graniru.org several years ago, which was then blocked by most ISPs in Russia due to a government order:
I am not here to claim that Russia is all nice and fluffy. But their stated goal for making infrastructure independent from the West is totally legit. It makes 100% sense. The rest is all guesses and speculations.
>> I thought openness to modern/popular media would have knocked down a lot of misinformation about "the west".
Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about Russia as well. Practically, 99% of all articles are negative in one way or another. The same happens with China. It used to be the same about Japan in the 80ies. People tend to think that they are able to properly assess inputs but they can't, they consume what is given and praise their masters in a highly predictable manner.
Only? ~33% is a high number that is also not reasonably close to being correct (as your supposedly is correctly suspicious of). I saw that figure on the Russia Beyond site, it's heavily misleading. Russia is rather notorious for having a very low percentage of English speakers.
By contrast, 33% is nearly as high as in France and Italy and is far higher than in Spain. Obviously it's false.
Only 3% of Russians are fluent in English. Only 5% spoke English as of the 2010 census. Even that is probably a stretch, as it's just a result of listing languages people claimed to know (which says nothing of the true capability). If we were generous to the last decade of English adoption, it's likely still well under 10% that speak it at all. You can also see this in action in Eastern Ukraine and Belarus, where English adoption is extremely low compared to most of Europe.
I can confirm, Russia has extremely low English competency. 3% sounds about right from my experience (I live here). Which is a good thing of course, as it forces me to learn Russian.
I was pretty surprised recently when I visited St Petersburg. I went on a tour and the tour guide spoke flawless English for the whole three hour tour. Until someone asked her a question in English. And another. And another. And with each one it became more apparent that she did not speak English, she just memorized the tour in English.
One of the more interesting things I took from the trip.
She probably knows some english, just not conversational. I can read spanish and I could certainly memorize a spanish language speech and even pronounce it fairly well, but I struggle to have anything beyond and extremely basic conversation in Spanish.
Hearing and understanding is easier than forming responses in real time. I understand a lot more Russian than I can speak. She probably understood a lot of English, but struggled coming up with responses.
Something I was intrigued by is that the VOA has a .ru domain. (This is the Voice of America, which broadcast US propaganda and world news to the Soviet Union during the Cold War)
Taken over seven months in 2012 to 2013 as part of her Days of Night/Nights of Day project, Russian photographer Elena Chernyshova’s images reveal what it’s like to live in one of the world’s most isolated cities. In Norilsk, winter lasts nine months – and during the polar night the sun doesn’t rise for two months.
One of the roads in the city is on Google Street View
edit: And all the way along the street, you see 4 people in Google-coloured red/green/yellow/blue snowsuits. haha https://goo.gl/maps/Z1dFVZBF9fHV1enk7
I have to wonder if the view of the West they are now getting from "YouTube personalities", Facebook and Instagram is much more accurate than they get from Putin. Different, certainly.
As far as "Life without fast internet":
"Residents adjusted. They created an intracity computer network that, among other things, allowed locals to download pirated movies and TV shows without connecting to the wider web. Going on vacation, several said, meant sitting in a hotel room, updating smartphone apps and taking in the bounties of the online world, even if the beach beckoned."