Well...Putin just signed this -

Vladimir Putin signs sweeping Internet-censorship bills
Publishing "unreliable socially significant information" can lead to big fines.

President Vladimir Putin has tightened his grip on the Russian Internet Monday, signing two censorship bills into law. One bans "f**e news" while the other makes it illegal to insult public officials.

Russia has never really been a liberal democracy. It lacks an independent judiciary, and the government has found a variety of techniques to harass and intimidate independent media in the country.

But the new legislation gives the Russian government more direct tools to censor online speech. Analyst Maria Snegovaya told The Washington Post that the legislation "significantly expands the repressive power of Russia’s repressive apparatus."

Under one bill, individuals can face fines and jail time if they publish material online that shows a "clear disrespect for society, the state, the official state symbols of the Russian Federation, the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and bodies exercising state power."

Insults against Putin himself can be punished under the law, The Moscow Times reports. Punishments can be as high as 300,000 rubles ($4,700) and 15 days in jail.

A second bill subjects sites publishing "unreliable socially significant information" to fines as high as 1.5 million rubles ($23,000).

"Russia has not historically had major constraints on Internet freedom," analyst Matthew Rojansky told the Post. "The Internet has thus been one realm in which full diversity of opinion and free expression, even on the most sensitive political topics, were generally permitted."

Now, however, the Russian government has "essentially unconstrained authority to determine that any speech is unacceptable. One consequence may be to make it nearly impossible for individuals or groups to call for public protest activity against any action taken by the state."

The Russian government has steadily tightened its grip over the Russian Internet, The Moscow Times notes. "Tougher Internet laws introduced over the past five years require search engines to delete some search results, messaging services to share encryption keys with security services, and social networks to store users' personal data on servers within the country."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/03/russia-makes-it-illegal-to-insult-officials-or-publish-f**e-news/

Not everyone has a constitution as we do protecting free speech, even bad speech. I can imagine Putin could site the past two years of US silliness as a good reason for banning f**e news and insulting public officials. Look what f**e news has done to the US. We are a divided nation because of it.

I don't know if I would prefer to have things banned as criminal but our society does seem to be out of control in that regard.

FYI, the annexation of Crimea was regarded as very favorable by the Crimean people. Most were Russian nationals and didn't want to be under the new regime in Ukraine.

Just say'in. The rest of the world ain't the USA.

Having had to do some work regarding the former Soviet Union I doubt I will ever even remotely trust Russia. Putin seems like more of a throwback to the old Soviet days. At least in that respect he can remain more predictable. But he can never be underestimated.

We definitely have some big problems here and I agree I can see Putin using us for justification for this law. Smart move on his part.

Russians and Ukranians h**e each other to put it mildly. There's no love lost between the Georgians and Russians either.

Interesting, take the Christ like approach, he meddles with our e******ns, we invite him to dinner and perhaps let him inspect our v****g machines during coffee after dinner, he annexes a territory belonging to another country, perhaps we should hug it out.

Putin is NOT a good man, Russian people, I am sure they are fine people but Putin is NOT. Of course that said, what can we really do about it? If he is willing and capable of swaying our e******ns, just imagine the impact he has over e******ns in his own country. We can't possibly expect that even if the Russian people want him out, that they can do anything about it, short of rising up and revolting. Perhaps that would happen if we placed heavy sanctions on them.

Of course there will be those of you that will claim he did not meddle. Many will ignore all the social media accounts created by Russia disseminating disinformation. Many others will disregard the hacking and leaking of DNC E-mails by Russia and who knows what all other means they may have utilized, how can we know unless it were caught. With friends like him, who needs enemies? Do we really want "friends" that will stoop to such levels against our people? It is speculated that the actions taken during the 2016 e******ns was specifically targeted to sow the seeds of chaos in the U.S., to weaken us and divide us. That does seem to be what the result was. If that was the intention, well done Putin, you succeeded. One can only wonder, did we elect Obama legitimately or did we have help from outside influences? We were quite divided over Obama as well.

Now for the counter-argument, the 2016 e******n did show that our e******ns ARE vulnerable. Now we can work to shore up those vulnerabilities. It does appear to seem we should perhaps consider scrapping electronic v****g for now, at least until we can ensure that we can do it in a safe and secure way, to avoid potential hacks. The internet with all the joys and conveniences it offers, it also offers many dangers as well. without the internet, any hacking would need to be done with direct access to a connected terminal, with it, it can be done from anywhere, including half way around the world.

For those that don't consider Putin a threat, there is much evidence to the contrary, even in Putin's own eyes if one were to look there. I have noticed over time that Putin ALWAYS seems to have the cold, calculating stare of someone trying to size up an opponent. then there's the various links below that all lead to articles telling how Putin wants to destroy the U.S. and how he wants to destroy NATO, which the U.S. is currently the strongest member of.



https://www.newsweek.com/2017/05/26/inside-putin-campaign-destroy-us-democracy-610401.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-said-he-could-destroy-the-us (x2, I chose the more recent rendition)

https://danielmiessler.com/blog/russia-is-trying-to-destroy-america-and-heres-how-to-do-it/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/vladimir-putin/11448971/Vladimir-Putin-wants-to-destroy-Nato-says-US-commander-in-Europe-Ben-Hodges.html (Article is about Putin wanting to destroy NATO, U.S. is strongest NATO alliance member...)

https://wearechange.org/how-putin-is-trying-to-destroy-the-u-s-dollar/ (a video and a list of links to articles, no article on the page itself)

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/inside-russias-attempt-to-hack-2018-and-2020



The Putin threat may be benign, it may be dark and dangerous, only time will tell for certain but considering recent events, I think I might lean a bit further towards dark and dangerous.

Hi CSM...

Agreed... Putin would love to weaken NATO...

Good thing all members are paying more (Although most are still not paying the 2% they are obligated to)... And isn't it great that the strongest member has increased military spending.... God bless America... And maybe He can remind Canada and some of the others about the importance of fullfilling our promises...

Putin certainly isn't the greatest fellow in the world... But some of my Russian friends like him... And some don't...
Go figure...

I sure do hope that you can see the hypocrisy in being pissed about Russian interference in the e******n as you call for sanctions amd an o*******wing of their government...

As for weakening the US... Your Congress's inability to work together sure ain't the Rusky's fault... Seems like all them fine folk in Washington need to start working together rather than against one another...

Just my take on things...
Hope you are well...

Your friend, Kyle

Ah, so it is okay for him to interfere with everyone's e******ns (not just ours, he has targeted several other countries' e******ns) and we should smile and say "that's okay"? He is no friend to the U.S. so anything we do to protect ourselves is justified. It isn't even just us that we would be defending, it is every country he is tampering that we would be defending as well as many of his own citizens, at least until they get another "Putin" in place as leader.

As for congress, that is another issue entirely, that is why we need more "centered" leadership. partisan politics lead to gridlock, what we need is to avoid electing far right and/or far left politicians. More "centered" politicians are more likely to work across party lines.

We owe it to the Russian people, not to mention all Ukrainians and freedom loving people around the world not to. Our nation has a long and proud history of opposing despots so that oppressed people around the world have a shot at living in freedom. Make no mistake, Putin is a murderous thug who has had people k**led in Briton, invaded a sovereign nation, propped up a fellow despot in Syria. The e******n meddling alone is an attack on our most cherished institutions and should be considered and act of war and responded to with a cyber counterattack of similar magnitude. Our response should be to destroy the wealth of Putin’s enablers and collapse the Russians puny economy so that Putin’s own people turn on him like they did the Tsar. We should not be cutting oil and real estate deals with this scum nor should our i***t child of a president be groveling and kissing Putin’s ass at every meeting. Despots and dictators should never never be our “friends.”

We owe it to the Russian people, not to mention all Ukrainians and freedom loving people around the world not to. Our nation has a long and proud history of opposing despots so that oppressed people around the world have a shot at living in freedom. Make no mistake, Putin is a murderous thug who has had people k**led in Briton, invaded a sovereign nation, propped up a fellow despot in Syria. The e******n meddling alone is an attack on our most cherished institutions and should be considered and act of war and responded to with a cyber counterattack of similar magnitude. Our response should be to destroy the wealth of Putin’s enablers and collapse the Russians puny economy so that Putin’s own people turn on him like they did the Tsar. We should not be cutting oil and real estate deals with this scum nor should our i***t child of a president be groveling and kissing Putin’s ass at every meeting. Despots and dictators should never never be our “friends.”