[Wikimedia-l] Russian Wikipedia goes on strike

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:22:12 +0100, Thomas Morton wrote:
> On 9 July 2012 20:41, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In less than half an hour Russian Wikipedia will go on one-day 
>> strike
>> against SOPA/PIPA-like law in Russia [1] (in Russian).
>>
>
> Unless I am missing something key; whilst this is a crappy law, it is 
> not
> much like SOPA/PIPA in that it doesn't seem to threaten the existence 
> of
> Russian Wikipedia.
>
> Comparatively; when some ISPs in the UK blacklisted The Pirate Bay at 
> the
> behest of the government we didn't black Wikipedia out over it.
>

Ok, let me may be provide a bit of a background.

1) The law is formally directed against child pornography, drug 
trafficking, hate between religions etc. The idea is that every website 
(whatever it means) where information violating the law has been 
discovered will get a one-day notice to remove the info, and if it fails 
to do so, the access to the whole website will be blocked by all 
providers legally operating in Russia. On paper, nothing in this law 
threats Wikipedia and sister projects.

2) There is no political freedom in Russia, and courts are not 
independent. Therefore many people are afraid that once the law is in 
force (tomorrow it must be voted in the second hearing, and the third 
hearing in  September is typically automatic) that it may become an 
instrument for central and local authorities to shut down access to 
internet sites at will claiming they advertise something listed in the 
law. Russian Wikipedia is not the only organization which raised such 
objections; another is for instance the Presidential Council on Hyman 
Rights (the suggestions of this council are typically get ignored 
despite its affiliation with the president), or the National 
Broadcasters Associations.

3) It is widely expected that the protest is going to be completely 
ignored. Indeed, the blackout has been reported in media, with both the 
minister of telecommunications and the vice-speaker of parliament 
explaining that the law has no threat for Wikipedia, and will not be 
amended.

4) The discussion on Russian Wikipedia was initiated yesterday morning 
by Stanislav Kozlovsky, the executive director of wm.ru. (He never wrote 
anything in his wm.ru role, and I believe the chapter was not involved 
in any way). First nothing happened, but in the late evening there was 
the blackout suggestion coming. Eventually, around 10pm it was 
transferred into a RFC, which was closed at 11pm since the number of 
votes for the blackout was clearly exceeding the votes against the 
blackout. No attempt was made top analyze the arguments, it was just a 
hasty majority decision. From what I know, no consultations with 
external parties were held. In contrast to the en.wp blackout, the 
mobile version of ru.wp is available now.

Cheers
Yaroslav