Section: Global Voices (The Netherlands)
Ukrainian Court Equates Social Network Profile With Mainstream Media
Can social media accounts be considered mass media? Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. In an unprecedented move, a Ukrainian court has equated a social media profile page with mass media outlets and sanctioned its owner for public calls to overthrow authorities. On February 2, 2016, a municipal court in Sumy, north-eastern Ukraine, found a local...
Ukrainian Artist Kseniya Simonova Shows Kazakhstan Through the Sands of Time
Kazakh history in sand frm Kseniya Simonova’s YouTube channel. An amazing video has emerged showing ‘sand animator’ and 2009 winner of Ukraine’s Got Talent Kseniya Simonova’s depiction of Kazakh nationhood. The sand narration commissioned by the Central Asian country’s government was to mark anniversary celebrations...
Ukrainian Censor’s ‘Explicit Content’ Database Is Up for Grabs
The Commission’s liquidators sent DVDs containing the database to state officials. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. One of Ukraine’s most embattled state censorship bodies, the National Expert Commission for Protection of Public Morality, was officially dissolved last year, but it’s still creating problems for government...
Russian Social Network VK Claims to Protect Users From Warrantless Surveillance
The headquarters of VK on Nevsky Avenue in Saint Petersburg (aka Singer House). Image from Wikimedia Commons. VKontakte, the most popular social network in Russia, Ukraine, and other post-Soviet countries, has long been the subject of speculation about how exactly it deals with requests for user information from law enforcement and secret...
New Ukrainian Draft Bill Seeks Extrajudicial Blocking for Websites Violating Copyright
Unlike the current notice and take down system that warns of violations before going to court, the new bill proposes to block websites violating copyright extrajudicially. Image edited by Tetyana Lokot. Ukraine’s parliament is considering a bill that would require hosting services and Internet service providers to block any website...
Ukraine Plans Cyber Security Review After ‘Russian’ Attack on Key Airport
Boryspil airport in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was the target of a hacker attack officials claim originated in Russia. Image from Wikimedia Commons. Officials in Ukraine are set to reconsider the state’s cyber security and defense systems, including those at airports and railway stations, after a recent malware attack on Kiev’s main...
Russian Blogger Shipilov Granted Political Asylum in Ukraine
Dmitry Shipilov in Kyiv, Ukraine in August 2015. Image from Facebook. Dmitry Shipilov, a Russian journalist and blogger who was previously charged with insulting the governor of Siberia’s Kemerovo region in posts on his blog, has been granted political asylum in Ukraine. Shipilov, who first applied for Ukrainian asylum in February 2015,...
Miss Me? Witty Hackers Put Sherlock Villain Moriarty on Kyiv Subway Screens
Moriarty, the villain from BBC’s Sherlock series surprised Kyiv metro riders on January 14. Image from Nash Kiev Facebook community. The subway passengers in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv got quite a shock on January 14 when images of Moriarty, the infamous villain from the Sherlock books and films, started popping up on the screens in the...
Triangulating Sources to Thin the Fog of War
Ghost village, by Christos Tsoumplekas. January 6, 2012. Ano Simi, Crete, Greece. CC 2.0. Edited by Kevin Rothrock. This article is part of a larger guidebook by RuNet Echo to help people learn how to conduct open-source research on the Russian Internet. Explore the complete guidebook at the special project page. The war in eastern Ukraine was...
Ukrainian Separatists Block 100+ News Websites in ‘Lugansk People’s Republic’
Users in occupied parts of Lugansk region report over a hundred Ukrainian news sites as blocked. Images mixed by Tetyana Lokot. More than one hundred Ukrainian news websites are currently inaccessible in the self-proclaimed “Lugansk People’s Republic,” a section of eastern Ukraine’s Lugansk region that has been occupied by a...
