Friday, November 21, 2008

Russia fights financial crisis... with censure


If you live in America or in Europe and are used to watching television every day, you probably think that nobody in the world now knows for sure how to deal with the current economic crisis. But you would think differently if you lived in Russia.

First of all if you watch television or read mainstream newspapers in Russia, you must know that the economic crisis has affected all countries in the world except for one (guess which one) "because its officials have taken all necessary actions to prevent it".

And second, Russian officials took measures to make sure people believed that.

According to an article on the web page of Russian newspaper "Kommersant" the Russian "General Prosecutor's Office joined the fight against the financial crisis. It issued an instruction for its attorneys in different regions of the country 'to prevent the information attacks on banks'". Inspection of different media outlets started yesterday in different regions of Russia. The attorneys are examining media reports for signs of "fomentation of financial crisis" and "destabilization of the situation in the region".

Web site URA.ru became the first target for the officials after writing about banks. During an interrogation its editor was asked how the web site got its information about banks.

The General Prosecutor Office's spokesman explained that they "don't censor", but just "verify the accuracy of information".

The newspaper mentions that the first person who spoke about "information attacks" that can "destabilize the social situation" was Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Equal opportunities online

I was currently reading about PEN (Public Electronic System) Project in Santa Monica, CA. It was in 1989. Santa Monica was known for its politically active citizens. The citizens donated to create this system and to built public terminals where various people could access PEN. And their efforts had its fruits. The system was actively used by homeless citizens. They created their own group that could promote their interests in the community. 

As a result of this the group was given a building in the center of the city where they could clean and story their things, learn and look for a job.

Thanks to this system these homeless people were treated equally.

It reminded me on what we were currently discussing in Paul Levinson's class at Fordham. We were talking about what Sarah Pailin said about bloggers. That they were "kids in their pajamas"... Professor Levinson thought it was a remarkable thing to say: Because on the internet no matter who you are, no matter how you are dressed or if you are homeless or not. Everybody is treated equally, everybody has an opportunity to express himself.

Isn't it a big deal for a human society? Isn't it promissing?