Internet/social media
Thursday 20 July 2017
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TASS
Russian state news agency
“Iranian television on Thursday distributed photographs confirming the death of the head of the Islamic State terrorist group, Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi.”
Read more...Russia’s state news agency TASS reported that Iranian TV had published photographic proof that Islamic State leader Abu Baqr al-Baghdadi was killed in a Russian airstrike in May. In fact, the same pictures had been circulating around the Internet since 2014. -
Vladimir Putin
Russian President
“Those are [IS] militants” [Vladimir Putin] “You wouldn’t want to join [IS] if you saw that” [Oliver Stone].
Read more...While Putin evidently believed the video was taken from recent Russian air strikes in Syria, in fact, it is a clip evidently of U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan released in 2009. -
TASS
Russian government news agency
“According to the research, 27% of its participants regard the Russian leader with confidence, believing that he ‘is doing the right things on the world stage’."
Read more...Russia’s TASS state news agency misrepresented the results of the Pew Research Center’s 2017 global survey in a way favorable to Vladimir Putin. The actual results of the survey concerning Putin were the opposite of what TASS reported. -
Vladimir Putin
Russian President
"We have hundreds of television companies and radio companies. The state doesn't control them at all, it is simply impossible."
Read more...While the state does not own all TV or engage in prior censorship, TV stations deemed too critical of the Kremlin have been forced off the air; large opposition protests are ignored, causing critics to turn to YouTube as an alternative. -
Channel One; Channel Five; NTV
Russian TV channels
Major Russian state-own TV channels have repeatedly included as a guest on their flagship talk shows someone identified as Greg Vainer, a U.S. journalist and member of the Republican Party’s national committee who “represents the American point of view” on global issues. Vainer’s opponents invariably take apart his arguments, the result being that the pro-Russian side always prevails in the debate.
Read more...Greg Vainer’s real name is Gregory Vinnikov. He was born and raised in the Soviet Union, moved to the U.S. in 1980 and then moved back to Russia around 2009. In the U.S., he left no mark as a journalist but, after launching a travel agency in New York, was sued by creditors at least five times. In addition, former clients accuse him of stealing their money. He has never been a member of the Republican National Committee; in fact, it seems he has never even registered to vote in the United States. -
Sergey Lavrov
Foreign Minister, Russia
"But in fact in this case (the VOA Russian service reporter) was lying because by the time he made these statements…Mr. Peskov and Ms. Zakharova and representatives of the Foreign Affairs Committees had spoken."
Read more...Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zahkarova apologized to a VOA reporter for incorrect remarks made by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference on Tuesday, in which he misrepresented Voice of America reporting in a way that served to undermine the agency's credibility. -
Dmitry Peskov
official Kremlin spokesman
"This is absolutely fake information, a fabrication and complete nonsense. The Kremlin does not engage in gathering compromising materials."
Read more...The Kremlin has a long history of releasing “compromising materials,” or “kompromat,” about politicians, journalists, and political opponents, both Russian and foreign. Not only that, the release of kompromat was a key factor in the rise of Vladimir Putin, and evidence suggests that the Putin administration has utilized the tactic heavily in advancing its goals. -
Yaroslav Kuzminov
Rector of Higher School of Economics
“Despite the fact that Coursera is an American company, they’ve persuaded the U.S. government to lift the prohibition for teaching in Crimea.”
Likely TrueU.S. provides for some exemptions for sanctions imposed on Russia after annexing Crimea.Read more...While U.S. Treasury Department officials declined comment, American virtual learning company Coursera confirmed it does have U.S. permission for online lessons on their platform to be accessible in Crimea. -
German Klimenko
Russian presidential adviser on internet issues
“Our country must be prepared that it will be cut off from the worldwide internet -- the high likelihood of 'tectonic shifts' in our relations with the West (is) in the direction of deterioration."
Read more...Alluding to possible threats from the West, Russia’s top tech envoy expressed fears that Russia's internet could be “cut off.” A Polygraph.info fact check shows that while a foreign cyber attack would be crippling, an effective closure of the nation’s internet access is an implausible scenario. -
Stanislav Govorukhin
Russian lawmaker and film director
"[Russia has] the only constitution in the word stating that any kind of censorship is forbidden."
Read more...This is not even close to true, and Govorukhin need look no further than other nations of the former Soviet Union for constitutions expression banning censorship. The OSCE noted in 2010 that only Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia were the only former Soviet republics not to have censorship bans. -
Aleksandr Zharov
head of Russia’s state media regulator, Roskomnadzor
“I’m opposed to censorship. Russian law forbids censorship. Those who call Roskomnadzor the main censor of the [the Russian-language Internet] don’t really understand what [censorship] is.”
Read more...The head of Russia’s media watchdog claims his agency isn’t a censor and only blocks online content that violates criminal statutes. But Russia’s law on “extremism” places critics of the war in Ukraine and Islamic State supporters in the same basket and often indiscriminately targets content regardless of context. Roskomnadzor has blocked numerous sites and social media posts on subjects sensitive to the government. -
Vyacheslav Volodin
first deputy chief of the Russian presidential administration
“[Russia] has more Internet freedoms [than in other countries]….In the United States several people have been sentenced to a year or a year-and-a-half in prison for comments made about [U.S.] President [Barack] Obama. So think to yourself: where is there more democracy, there or here?”
Read more...A senior Kremlin official says that U.S. prosecutions for “comments made about” U.S. president Barack Obama have led to prison sentences for “several people” in recent months, and that this shows that Russia has “more democracy” than the United States. But Vyacheslav Volodin, a key architect of President Vladimir Putin’s political system, was comparing apples to oranges when he made the assertion while discussing Internet freedoms in Russia.