Section: Global Voices (The Netherlands)
Selfie Empowerment: Russian Communists Want Your Lenin Selfies
Russian Communists want to make Lenin hip again—using the power of selfies. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. The art of the selfie photo has become a controversial pastime in Russia, especially after being branded “dangerous” by police, who have called for taking fewer risks and advocated for “safe selfies” with a special campaign. But Russians...
As Ukraine Bans Russian TV Shows for ‘Propaganda,’ Local Channels Put Up a Fight
No Russian TV series for Ukrainians… At least not until TV channels find loopholes in the new law. Images mixed by Anna Poludenko-Young Ukraine has banned a number of Russian TV shows that it claims glorify the Russian government, military, and law enforcement. However, the new law outlining the rules for banning content has run into resistance...
Internet Spots Luhansk Militants′ ‘Battlefield 3’ Fakes
Who knew pro-Russian militants were that into video games? Image by Ben Andreas Harding on Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. On July 22, the self-declared Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine released what appeared to be a shocking video: a Stinger, an American-made Man-Portable Air-Defense System (MANPADS), was found in the Luhansk Airport....
Russian Consumer Group Raises Hell by Warning Tourists Against Traveling to Crimea
The consumer rights group OZPP says traveling to Crimea without Kyiv’s permission could result in serious legal problems. Image edited by Kevin Rothrock Last month, Russian federal censors blacklisted a travel advisory published online by a consumer protection group known as OZPP on charges of extremism. Officials targeted OZPP because it...
Russian Social Networks Start Courting Russian Users Sick of Censorship on Facebook
Russian social networks try to court Russian users who have opted for American websites. (VKontakte is sometimes represented as a cartoon dog.) Image by Kevin Rothrock. In the latest episode of Facebook’s drama with users in Russia and Ukraine, the network suspended accounts and deleted several posts belonging to a handful of prominent...
Hashtags and User Networks in the Putin-Poroshenko Twitter Chatter
Connections between Twitter users and the hashtags they use might reveal interesting information. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. This article is part of a citizen-media data-analysis project, a collaboration between RuNet Echo and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Explore the complete article series on the All the...
The Man Who Supported Ostriches and Other Viral Adventures of Viktor Yanukovych
Former Ukrainian President Yanukovych is catching up to Vladimir Putin in meme points. Courtesy image from Twitter. Ukraine’s ousted ex-President Viktor Yanukovych is no stranger to memes and viral videos featuring his person. But after the Euromaidan protests led him to escape Ukraine in February 2014, he has been off the radar, living in...
A Picture Worth a Thousand Russian Expletives
Some of them are smiling, a few are holding drinks, and one is even gesturing the “peace sign.” There are nine people in the photo, and the third one in from the right—the reason everyone is posing together—is Alexander Borodai, the former prime minister of the breakaway People’s Republic of Donetsk. The other eight people in the photo are...
Self-Proclaimed ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ Now Has an Internet Blacklist
Most of the websites on the blacklist are those of Ukrainian media. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. Internet blacklists are a common occurrence in countries like Russia and Belarus, and now officials of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic” in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine have decided to join the club. Their newly-minted...
Twitter Discourse Around Putin and Poroshenko in Ukraine and Russia
What do Russians and Ukrainians talk about when they tweet about their presidents? Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. This article is part of a citizen-media data-analysis project, a collaboration between RuNet Echo and the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities. Explore the complete article series on the All the Presidents’ Tweets...
