Context: Yandex is in the news right now because a couple of days ago its cofounder and former CEO Arkady Volozh was caught trying to hide his Russian past [0], and today he finally issued a public statement condemning the war [1], almost 1.5 years after the full-scale invasion began.
> today he finally issued a public statement condemning the war
Would you issue such a statement in his position? Think carefully. If you don't, you will probably have twitter brigades trying to smear your name. If you do, your family back home might be at risk, and you will probably never be able to visit them again.
Personally, I cannot in good faith demand anyone condemn the war, if to do so, they are putting family and friends freedoms at risk.
Hmm, on second thought, you may be right and I probably overreacted. I still don't really believe Putin would exact revenge on Volozh — Oleg Tinkoff defected back in spring 2022, and I think his family is quite fine — but relying on Russia not being stupid doesn't sound wise right now.
While some people (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasyl_Makukh
) sacrificed their lives in protest of Soviet Russia invasion into Czechoslovakia, timely public statement is the least he could do.
He could've left russia long time ago along with family and friends.
But he enjoys russian money even though he has more than enough for 100 lifetimes.
So yeah, I can in good faith demand from him and most other russians to condemn the war. Because the reason it happened is precisely that everyone does nothing in russia.
Most of them flee the country because they don't want to get into army, and even when they are abroad and in safety - they still don't condemn the war.
> If you don't, you will probably have twitter brigades trying to smear your name.
Do Twitter crowds actually do that? Do they keep track of anyone more or less prominent, and write in their comments "Have you spoken out against the war yet?" "I haven't seen you denounce the war"?
Remember that time a year ago in February when the Namecheap CEO gave every person with a Russian ID, living inside and outside Russia, 1-week notice that their account is terminated and they have to host elsewhere?
Including expats, refugees, objectors, what have you. Your contract with Namecheap is terminated for being connected to Russia. Prove to us you're not, if you want to keep your service.
His justification? Well we have a lot of Ukrainian staff and you know, we're not with Russia therefore we're against Russia, therefore...
> If we were virtue signaling we wouldn't willingly be giving up a not non significant part of our business. This hurts us financially but it's the right thing to do, at least for us.
Your leader/country is already killing innocent civilians/ukranians. They are putting it all on the line with their lives. They didn't ask for this yet they are dying for it. Change needs to come and the only way it can is for the Russian population to put it on the line as well.
It mostly happens via private messaging, but yes. It's part of the "you are either with us or against us" mentality of many campaign groups.
See ~2 years ago when every opensource project was forced to publish a code of conduct and diversity and inclusion policy... Often the people asking for the policies weren't even users of the software involved, let alone interested in writing code for the proect. That campaign seems to have ended, and nobody cares if your project has either anymore.
There are many active 'master' branches at work, and many, many active 'master' branches on Github.
By that measure, the movement to rename every 'master' branch to 'main' has been a resounding failure.
(If you look at the events at the time it sprung up, you could pretty safely say that it was encouraged as a way to distract from the then-current "GitHub is doing business with US's ICE!" hatestorm, and man was it successful.)
>Kazakhstani (born in Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union) ethnic Russian stops mentioning “Russia” in his biography during a period of increased Russophobia.
He is jewish.
Just like the rest of the "yandex talents" that moved to work at Israeli office.
They all get to be jewish when if suits them.
UPD.
Also, yandex news was (and still is) the pinnacle of russian putin propaganda. And the person in question was complicit with it. Even, given the fact he wasn't living in russia since 2014.
He tries to whitewash himself because he is a sanctioned individual. And the protocol to get desanctioned is to publicly state he disapproves the war.
> “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is barbaric, and I am categorically against it,” Volozh said in a statement. “I am horrified about the fate of people in Ukraine – many of them my personal friends and relatives – whose houses are being bombed every day. “Although I moved to Israel in 2014, ...
Israel cares a lot about what happens in Ukraine because it is in a similar position, a highly-militarized vanguard of the West. If Ukraine falls despite backing from Washington, what does that say about possible outcomes should a (full-scale) war break out between Israel and Iran/Arab states?
Would you issue such a statement in his position? Think carefully. If you don't, you will probably have twitter brigades trying to smear your name. If you do, your family back home might be at risk, and you will probably never be able to visit them again.
Personally, I cannot in good faith demand anyone condemn the war, if to do so, they are putting family and friends freedoms at risk.