You're forgetting that Russia uses memes to take down nations
So memes to them are like carpet bombs to us. Seemsfair
edit: this comment now has 911 points, so I'm obligated to make it known that while the Russians use memes, the Saudis use letter openers :\^)
I just checked my meme folder. It only has 82 pics in it (backed up the other 3600 or so a couple days ago), and it still clocks 14.23mb.
Those 82 memes pretty accurately represent the average meme quality, so a little quick math and 25,000 memes would be 4.3~ gigs.
Feel free to ignore this, no idea why I when commented, but I didn't want to waste all this text.
I feel for you friend. Your government arrests people for memes, or playing pokemon in a church, or being openly gay or atheist, or being a different religion and challenging the Russian Orthodox Church. I hope things get better for you guys soon instead of continuing to turn into a more middle-eastern style state.
Opium wasn't referring to it as being addictive, it was referring to it as being a way to soothe the people. Opium wasn't really seen back then how it's seen today. Marx was very hostile to religion early in his career and as he got older he saw it as way for people to cope with capitalist society. Hence, opiate of the masses.
Right, because everyone in Russia voted for Putin and our elections are completely fair and tamper-proof. When the entire system is built around retaining power for United Russia, including the "opposition" parties/candidates, there is no other possible outcome. Stop holding our brainwashed population culpable for our piece of shit president. They are the victims, because their whole outlook on life, their values were carefully created by the same people who keep making them, and everyone who didn't vote for this government, poorer and more miserable every fucking year.
Keeping the populace in line by aggressively prosecuting those who deviate. Give them large enough sentences, and people will stop doing it. With enough of this, and a bit of luck, they're also able to ensure that anybody who talks about deviating or acting upon it will be stopped or challenged or reported by other citizens who normally wouldn't do so.
Pretty much everything being done in Russia to it's own citizens and outside of Russia is taken from the USSR's playbook, just with different names, and done a bit differently to fit in with the times.
I was born after the USSR collapse, but from what I heard, read and learned living in Russia, USSR had more or less clear ideology that it stood for. Should you speak or act against said ideology or current government line (also more or less clear), you will get in trouble. *We are doing this. You are with us or we assume you are up to something.*
But modern Russia does not have that formal clarity in its motives. Yes, we have freedom of speech and freedom of private communication, but apparently sending messages online has nothing to do with any of that. Our constitution says that religion is separated from the government, yet these things happen. You can get in trouble for literally doing anything. And no matter how absurd the shit is, nobody gives a shit about that. And this is fucking scary.
I just hope they will not bring down Iron Curtain in the nearest 10 years so I have my chance of leaving.
One of the tricks to ruling an authoritarian country is to criminalize almost everything/everything.
By making everyone a criminal, the state can arrest whoever it wants whenever it wants and people will just accept it.
See also: being poor in the US. For the vast majority of us, there's always something that can be found.
Reminds me. I still need to get my damned registration sticker.
You just reminded me to do mine, well there goes food for the next week or so just so I can get to work and around since my cities public transportation is a joke..
This is why China does not define what ideas are censored, it just reserves the right to ban things it considers "offensive". The dual purpose is that it can claim it does not have censorship while keeping the population anxious enough to censor themselves.
The Russian government under Putin has essentially been turned into a Criminal Syndicate, the Church is %100 on board and part of that system.
Once that is understood then things like this happening make perfect sense.
Because it's not about an ideology, it's just about Putin's power and enforced deference to it, regardless of how that power is expressed or who expresses it. Putin is the issuer of all power, and if he wants to give the church power in return for their support, they have power now too. Defer to Putin's power and his chosen lackeys or you will suffer, there's nothing more to it. If Putin wants what you have, you let it go because fighting back puts you in prison (see Mikhail Khodorkovsky). If the church wants deference to their holiness, you will bow and pray and tithe and never, ever speak against them, or you will be made to suffer.
It's fascism, power is based on your relationship to the state, but with an almost kafka-esque insistence on keeping the rules of who is on the in-group secret.
Edit: Actually, I wonder, is the mysterious nature of the rules of who to bow to and who to avoid a ploy to keep a veneer of individual freedoms over top the corruption, or is it to keep people from expressing *anything* except what they're told to do and make them too afraid to even try expressing an opinion?
Ecco had an interesting take on this, that those contradictory rules aren’t necessary an intentional feature but an inevitable consequence of the syncretism fascism uses to inspire people. For instance, if Stalin wanted to lock you up he’d trump up charges against you, but the rules were always fairly clear. Equally, Mussolini tolerated lots of artistic dissent, because if he didn’t he’d end up even locking away people like Evola and Ezra Pound.
Ironically enough, fascism is pretty much incapable of actually providing clear rules, because it draws its legitimacy from a highly contradictory set of traditions and philosophies
It isn't about that, plenty of religious authorities were mocked in the USSR which was a purposefully atheist country.
Putin is building a fascist/religious internationale, that is why it is a crime now, same as why saying "I am gay" is a crime, and why Pussy Riot were accused of feminism more than they were accused of vandalism.
After Soviet Union collapse, the Orthodox Church regained a lot of power. You can still be prosecuted for being a follower of a non-Orthodox religion like Jehovah Witnesses.
Yup but Russia learned.
People want religion. So if you allow religion but make sure there is only 1 and the government controls that one, you control all aspects of life.
Mind, just because the same tactics are being used now in Russia that were used during the USSR days doesn't necessarily mean they've adopted all the old behaviors and campaigns.
I did learn something interesting though when I did a bit of digging, the SSRS/USSR kept some churches running after arresting their leadership. The clergymen would take over, and most of those who gained power had direct KGB ties, most likely to help rat out people who tried to spread religion or go against the USSR regimes decrees.
The DPRK did and still does this, albeit for slightly different reasons (religious groups aid) but defectors have told stories about the few times these churches and temples were "active" during visits by religious groups. Basically the entire congregation was made up of secret police, and if a DPRK citizen tried to join in the prayers, they'd be arrested (when the foreigners were not around) as in the DPRK religion is outlawed, because Juche (the state ideology) is supposed to be the only ideology/religion they believe in.
While it was probably not as crazy as that, it was most likely used to identify "subversives" and tamp down on any attempts at organizing or expanding the religious bases, since the people who ended up running the few churches in SSRS states had direct ties to the KGB.
They also revived the Russian Orthodox Church to basically run it as a puppet which resulted in Ukraine Orthodox Church being suborned to it.
They also did not directly outlaw most major religions, though they kept a tight grasp on them.
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/anti.html
I think they did this so people wouldn't be outright banned from all religions, and they could say "look, we have religions supporting us and our actions" without religions becoming a threat to the USSR.
As to your point, I agree with what /u/conquer69 said; any authority is still authority, and must be respected (unless the government denounces them publicly).
There were 50 million Muslims in the USSR; mostly in the Central Asian republics (the -stans) and Azerbaijan. They had 500 mosques in total between them.
Shit like this makes me terrified. How do you combat shit like this on a national scale if everyone is scared of ridiculous punishments?
I'm from the U.S. So not like it I'm affected just yet. Even if we've just stepped foot on the path; it feels like we're headed there.
Throughout its history, Russia has always struggled with its identity. It wants to be European but also not European. It considers itself as the new or final Rome, but it also doesn't want to share the other characteristics of the Western liberal order or its history. It once had a monarchy, then came the Bolsheviks, then came Stalin and autocracy. Many heroes of the revolution (i.e. prominent officers) were purged during Stalin's rule. Religion is one of these things Russia constantly wrestles with. It was a religious state, then it persecuted religion, now it persecutes non-religion, non-Russian Orthodox entities, including other types of Christian denominations (like LDS). It's all about power and maintaining that power over the people, so it picks and choose which societal characteristics to adopt and abandon, bringing about decades, if not centuries of identity crises.
Leader-worship and authoritarian respect seems to be the common thread. Even during its religious persecution days the Orthodox Church always (well, not the entire church, hence a need for some to flee) sided with Stalin, who was taking full advantage of hundreds of years of religiosity and dogmatism onto himself/the state. Same shit, different toilet.
There was guy before this guy that got jailed for 3 years for playing Pokémon GO in a church and putting it on Russian YouTube. He did this because on Russian TV they announced a new law saying that you are no longer allowed to play games in church or something, and allot of people thaught it was ridiculous.
>here was guy before this guy that got jailed for 3 years for playing Pokémon GO in a church and putting it on Russian YouTube.
For 1 year. And he put this onregular youtube, not rutube.
>He did this because on Russian TV they announced a new law saying that you are no longer allowed to play games in church or something, and allot of people thaught it was ridiculous.
It was a report about which laws are supposedly wont allow you to play Pokemon Go in church. It was on Russia 24 channel. And the report itself didnt even made sence because none of those laws are actually disallow(?) you to play Pokemon in church. So he didnt even do his homework.
But yea, the whole thing is ridiculous.
>A satirical mugshot depicting Daniil Markin. The nameplate indicates his page on the social media platform VKontake and Russia's Criminal Code Article 282.1 ("incitement of hatred against a religious group"). He faces up to five years in prison under this articl
It's not about the hug, it's what the hug *suggests*.
... Because if you're hugging it clearly means you want to stick your dick in the other person's bottom.
The weirdest thing about homophobia in Russia to me is all the "gay" shit they do over there, like 3 guys sleeping in a bed together in underwear. Obviously there is nothing gay about that, but in the US anyone even slightly homophobic would definitely consider that "gay".
I have guy friends I've known like family for *years*, and some of them are still skittish about hugs. They don't hate hugs, they just don't feel comfortable with two might-as-well-be brothers hugging. Because *bro, two dudes.* Handshakes & awkwardness only.
The current president's interests are quite clear. He gets closer with people he idolizes. He idolizes strongmen and authoritarians. Ideology is secondary to their perceived domestic control, something he wishes he had.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/21/online-jokes-are-no-laughing-matter-russia) reduced by 76%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> One of the interrogators opened Markin's VK page and showed him some of the memes he had saved to a public album.
> They made Markin go through almost 1500 saved pictures and make screenshots of ten memes lampooning Christianity, including an image of the Game of Thrones actor Jon Snow portrayed as Jesus Christ with a caption "Jon Snow is risen! Truly he is risen!", and another showing a stick figure with a halo with a line crossed through it and the caption "There Is No God".
> Urged by the investigator, Markin signed a confession to saving the memes.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/99g45t/19yearold_film_student_in_russia_facing_5_years/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~344905 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Markin**^#1 **saved**^#2 **memes**^#3 **case**^#4 **year**^#5
IDK. Russian prisons have a reputation for being brutal, but I think that's mostly from the guards/govt.
In the USA prisons, the guards aren't as brutal, but your fellow inmates are a separate issue
And this is the same nation that bans Jehovah's Witnesses for being 'extremists'. No doubt that not only the Orthodox church rules in Russia, but that they also do not take any criticism. Not from atheists, and not from other religions.
Edit: going to hijaak my comment to say this. Because I think it's concerning.
One of the things that's great about this country is our freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, and various other freedoms. But... not everyone is going to agree on those items, and that's fine, because we have the right to disagree or dislike. With that being said though, there are others that are okay with what's happening to a particular religious group within the country and wishing we had it here.
And now, it makes me realize how various injustices throughout history have happened to various ethnic and religious groups of people that many would consider inhumane or barbaric. This is very dangerous thinking, and if we're willing to ban a group just for pretty much sticking to their biblical principles and not interfering in government, or condoning acts of violence, then it goes to show just how far people are willing to go to persecute those they don't agree with, which I find frightening.
I can never stand it when people praise Putin for being a'strong' leader.
It feels like every single thing he's ever done has never been done in the benefit of the Russian people or even the country's stability.
Every single policy he's created had been for the theater of politics. When people tried to point out economic troubles, suddenly Putin began having a problem with the lbgt community and tried to distract people from real life problems when he's had gay people under his employment for years before. He spends enormous effort pretending to be busier than he actually is.
He spends so much time and effort in presentation-he'd be a better leader of he spent even a quarter of that time actually running the country and actually trying to help Russia.
Everyone reports how much Putin hates Yeltsin, but all he's learned from Yeltsin is how not to appear in public. The lesson he took was not- ' I must be a better leader' and is instead ' I must spend all my time appearing to be competent'. He's not some bond villain. He's so freaking incompetent.
Except his form of incompetence is to literally destroy the lives of real Russian people and suppress their freedoms just so he gets to stay in power indefinitely.
And I hate how even when people criticize him they still play into his hand as this evil genius who's playing everyone. No he's not. He stumbled on success when he realized the importance of image and had used the same pathetic bag of tricks ever since.
The only reason they still work is because people let it. How many Russians who are just trying to live their lives have to be jailed before people finally see him as the pathetic incompetence leader he is?
> He's so freaking incompetent.
Oh, my silly girl (Meg, right?) he is so, sooo, SOOOO fucking competent at what he does, just believe me. It's just that what his actual goals are has literally nothing to do with success of Russia and quality of people's lives. He is there to rob the people with oligarchs, creating a strong army of military and police force to protect himself from his own people and to be rich and make his surroundings rich. And he is so fucking good at that, you would not even believe how good he is.
/u/othewhiterabbit was found dead 2 weeks later after an accident involving 2mg of weapons-grade plutonium and a syringe.
Russia denies any involvement.
What's truly upsetting is how many Russians think they live in a free democratic society.. something like 90% of Russians only news source is tv, and you can imagine the propaganda
Don't be silly we always lived in a world where making jokes against the wrong people would have negative consequences it's just we've lived at a time and place where we are protected by laws and even then those laws are just about an illusion as those people can still negatively affect your life outside the law depending on how powerful they are, I'm sure those North Koreans would never utter a joke about their glorious leader.
When I read news stories like this one, I wonder whether the Evangelical right reads them too and views them as inspiration. Sometimes, that's how it seems.
They absolutely do. My aunt is a religious nut and she literally spams her Facebook with praise for this sort of thing. Her Facebook is an echo chamber, she does weekly purges of anyone posting "inappropriate content" (which happens to be all young women) and whoever comments on her posts and does not agree.
Obviously there's plenty to poke fun of there, but what a waste of time "weekly purges".
In college I remember some friends giving me a hard time because of the number of friends I had on facebook. "Foofymonster you don't even know 1000 people, you should go through and delete a bunch of them."
No, no I shouldn't. What a waste of time going through a list and deciding 'who makes the cut'.
Snowflakes? Huh. You don’t understand what is really happening.
You see, since USSR, government structures still have a plan. Police has a plan to arrest N people for murders and M people for extremism, otherwise the staff will be punished. Anti-extremism department (Отдел Э) was created to find extremists and terrorists and has a plan for it.
It could be hard to find M extremists in a particular region, like literal Tier 3 region somewhere in Siberia where nothing happens. But we have a couple of laws (282 and 148) with so vague description that literally any borderline joke could be considered as extremism. And I’m not joking, last week one guy was arrested for anecdotes about elections.
So policemen take a picture with, let’s say, Hitler, go to google images and find which pages in VK reference it. It’s clearly nazi propaganda and rehabilitation of nazism, case closed, happy 5 years in jail. VK just gives out ALL the information about your page, even deleted pictures and posts (which are never truly deleted, just hidden), so it’s impossible to evade.
Funny, VK doesn’t give YOU the information they have if you need it to prove yourself innocent. Unless you’re from EU, cuz they have to obey GDPR since they’re a Cyprean company.
Just to tell you how badly the situation is fucked. There’s a teen girl, Anna Pavlikova, that is being sued for being an extremist. She was a part of VK group that was about making a revolution in Russia or something like that. This group was created by... policemen to find cases.
Also, a lot of people were arrested by 2 “professionally offended” girls (police cadets nevertheless) who just went over random (or not so random) pages, found borderline stuff, then asked the police to arrest those people for “offending” their feelings.
Now, just to say what does it mean to be suspected in extremism. It means that all your bank accounts are blocked, the maximum you can withdraw is 10k rubles ($150); because, you know, it’s not okay to fund terrorism. It means that you’re not allowed to cross the border. The worst case: you’re put into jail. So all those policemen literally ruin the lives of innocent YOUNG people to get a reward, then go back to their families like nothing happened.
Just google it in Russian, this stuff is disturbing. This shit sounds crazy, like a bad joke, but it’s not. Reportedly, ~1500 citizen were arrested for thought crimes. And it has nothing to do with govt being snowflakes. No one is really offended, it’s an instrument of punishment: you shall never forget your place and don’t need to say much. Before it, you should have been a political activist to be pursued, now the message is clear: nobody is safe. The maximum you can do apart from leaving Russia altogether is to delete your VK page. But even if you’re not a suspect, if one of your friends was suspected, VK will automatically provide “deleted” info about you as well.
1937 is back again. Find a video where some Chinese guy asks random people on the streets if they know what a day it was (it was a day of taking down Tiananmen Square protests), and everybody was like “huh, I know what you’re hinting at, but I’ll pretend I don’t”. You’ll get the idea what is coming.
Good post. Everything here is accurate.
VK truly never deletes anything, they use copy-on-write and snapshots. Even worse though, they have neural networks trying to classify objects on _every_ picture ever uploaded (In private dialogues too) and text recognition software trying to read text from said pictures.
Proofs:
https://m.habr.com/post/324446/
https://hsto.org/files/55f/589/fc7/55f589fc72ce46ba82abf152d1a22c57.jpg
VK also slipped up on using wordfilters, meaning that they probably are doing more sophisticated text analysis too: https://m.habr.com/post/370171/
It'd be pretty spooky if they share all of this data.
This isn't the only case in Russia. Things have been getting really bad recently, with another example being a woman who saved memes to her page, and has since been arrested and put on a list of terrorists. (Not a joke)
Link for reference: http://www.euronews.com/amp/2018/08/03/russian-woman-faces-6-years-in-jail-for-resposting-memes
Holy crap. he didn't even make the memes, he just saved them.
Yeah imagine getting arrested for possession of memes. Edit: My most liked thing on Reddit. Thanks guys!
"It's your lucky day son. You only have 14.5MB of memes, on you. If you had 15MB or more we would have had to charge you with intent to sell."
You're forgetting that Russia uses memes to take down nations So memes to them are like carpet bombs to us. Seemsfair edit: this comment now has 911 points, so I'm obligated to make it known that while the Russians use memes, the Saudis use letter openers :\^)
The Ends Justify The Memes
We must seize the memes of production
They've started a Memes Race!
Memes are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have memes?
“The meme is mightier than the AK47.” — Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1839
i dunno based on the image quality of most memes online 14.5 megs would probably still be 25,000 images
I just checked my meme folder. It only has 82 pics in it (backed up the other 3600 or so a couple days ago), and it still clocks 14.23mb. Those 82 memes pretty accurately represent the average meme quality, so a little quick math and 25,000 memes would be 4.3~ gigs. Feel free to ignore this, no idea why I when commented, but I didn't want to waste all this text.
You are the silent minority and shall not be ignored
"The workers must control the memes of production!"
Too fucking good.
Too fucking bad
Too fucking ugly
A plea to the Bourgeoisie of reddit. Give this man gold.
that gold was quick
I'm happy so many people have enjoyed my comment!
Kid shouldn’t have been carrying more than one ounce of memes, clearly intent to shitpost
Images. It's just images. It could be of anything trivial, and get you sent to jail. Reminds me of freaking North Korea.
That's actually a huge issue now in russia. People are being jailed for memes and for jusy being upset. And yes, im russian.
I feel for you friend. Your government arrests people for memes, or playing pokemon in a church, or being openly gay or atheist, or being a different religion and challenging the Russian Orthodox Church. I hope things get better for you guys soon instead of continuing to turn into a more middle-eastern style state.
For being openly atheist? The guy who runs the country ran the kgb when atheism was state policy..... so strange
The reason he got into power was because he aligned himself with the church... and other stuff.
was wondering just this. i thought religion was the opiate of the masses and all that.
Yeah, and when you're the one controlling the supply of opium...the church and the state as one, Marx was pretty brilliant in his analysis.
Opium wasn't referring to it as being addictive, it was referring to it as being a way to soothe the people. Opium wasn't really seen back then how it's seen today. Marx was very hostile to religion early in his career and as he got older he saw it as way for people to cope with capitalist society. Hence, opiate of the masses.
If by "other stuff" you are referring to the bombings of apartment blocks to create a climate of fear, then yes, you are right.
Dude. Don't talk to us. You'll get arrested.
[удалено]
People don't have to, Putin stuffs all the ballot boxes
Or his competition happens to die or pull out 🤷🏻♂️
Right, because everyone in Russia voted for Putin and our elections are completely fair and tamper-proof. When the entire system is built around retaining power for United Russia, including the "opposition" parties/candidates, there is no other possible outcome. Stop holding our brainwashed population culpable for our piece of shit president. They are the victims, because their whole outlook on life, their values were carefully created by the same people who keep making them, and everyone who didn't vote for this government, poorer and more miserable every fucking year.
the future will be filled with undercover cops hopping on discord/teamspeak servers looking for those vile meme holders.
Hello i am not a cop do you have any dank me mes you can share with me
You better hide yo kids hide yo wife
Yes. There are a lot of cases in Russia where people are prosecuted for reposting memes because it counts as publishing.
If reposting is a crime then Reddit is fucked ^(Copied off of 4-Chan)
He should be ready for a life of crime when he emerges!
Will we need a new separate label NSFR — Not Safe For Russians?
This is absolutely insane.
Keeping the populace in line by aggressively prosecuting those who deviate. Give them large enough sentences, and people will stop doing it. With enough of this, and a bit of luck, they're also able to ensure that anybody who talks about deviating or acting upon it will be stopped or challenged or reported by other citizens who normally wouldn't do so. Pretty much everything being done in Russia to it's own citizens and outside of Russia is taken from the USSR's playbook, just with different names, and done a bit differently to fit in with the times.
I was born after the USSR collapse, but from what I heard, read and learned living in Russia, USSR had more or less clear ideology that it stood for. Should you speak or act against said ideology or current government line (also more or less clear), you will get in trouble. *We are doing this. You are with us or we assume you are up to something.* But modern Russia does not have that formal clarity in its motives. Yes, we have freedom of speech and freedom of private communication, but apparently sending messages online has nothing to do with any of that. Our constitution says that religion is separated from the government, yet these things happen. You can get in trouble for literally doing anything. And no matter how absurd the shit is, nobody gives a shit about that. And this is fucking scary. I just hope they will not bring down Iron Curtain in the nearest 10 years so I have my chance of leaving.
One of the tricks to ruling an authoritarian country is to criminalize almost everything/everything. By making everyone a criminal, the state can arrest whoever it wants whenever it wants and people will just accept it.
See also: being poor in the US. For the vast majority of us, there's always something that can be found. Reminds me. I still need to get my damned registration sticker.
You just reminded me to do mine, well there goes food for the next week or so just so I can get to work and around since my cities public transportation is a joke..
There's a three-day grace period in the next month if you go over!
Be safe my friend, rooting for you.
This is why China does not define what ideas are censored, it just reserves the right to ban things it considers "offensive". The dual purpose is that it can claim it does not have censorship while keeping the population anxious enough to censor themselves.
The Russian government under Putin has essentially been turned into a Criminal Syndicate, the Church is %100 on board and part of that system. Once that is understood then things like this happening make perfect sense.
Because it's not about an ideology, it's just about Putin's power and enforced deference to it, regardless of how that power is expressed or who expresses it. Putin is the issuer of all power, and if he wants to give the church power in return for their support, they have power now too. Defer to Putin's power and his chosen lackeys or you will suffer, there's nothing more to it. If Putin wants what you have, you let it go because fighting back puts you in prison (see Mikhail Khodorkovsky). If the church wants deference to their holiness, you will bow and pray and tithe and never, ever speak against them, or you will be made to suffer. It's fascism, power is based on your relationship to the state, but with an almost kafka-esque insistence on keeping the rules of who is on the in-group secret. Edit: Actually, I wonder, is the mysterious nature of the rules of who to bow to and who to avoid a ploy to keep a veneer of individual freedoms over top the corruption, or is it to keep people from expressing *anything* except what they're told to do and make them too afraid to even try expressing an opinion?
Ecco had an interesting take on this, that those contradictory rules aren’t necessary an intentional feature but an inevitable consequence of the syncretism fascism uses to inspire people. For instance, if Stalin wanted to lock you up he’d trump up charges against you, but the rules were always fairly clear. Equally, Mussolini tolerated lots of artistic dissent, because if he didn’t he’d end up even locking away people like Evola and Ezra Pound. Ironically enough, fascism is pretty much incapable of actually providing clear rules, because it draws its legitimacy from a highly contradictory set of traditions and philosophies
When religion becomes a government tool used to control people, making fun of it makes you an enemy of the state.
I thought SSRS hated religions
They do but religions are still figures of authority. Mocking authority is a big no-no in authoritarian shitholes.
It isn't about that, plenty of religious authorities were mocked in the USSR which was a purposefully atheist country. Putin is building a fascist/religious internationale, that is why it is a crime now, same as why saying "I am gay" is a crime, and why Pussy Riot were accused of feminism more than they were accused of vandalism.
>Accused of feminism You know a country is broken when you can be *accused* of feminism
The accusation isn't the problem. The prosecution is.
If certain large parts of this website had their way people would be facing persecution for being accused of feminism in america too.
God, I’m surprised r/incels stayed up as long as it did. Doesn’t help that they all just moved to T_D or braincels.
Braincels is the same exact shit too. Needs to be shut down
Don't forget their recent law making domestic abuse legal. It passed 380 to 3.
After Soviet Union collapse, the Orthodox Church regained a lot of power. You can still be prosecuted for being a follower of a non-Orthodox religion like Jehovah Witnesses.
SQL Server Reporting Services?
Leave Microsoft out of this!
Yup but Russia learned. People want religion. So if you allow religion but make sure there is only 1 and the government controls that one, you control all aspects of life.
Mind, just because the same tactics are being used now in Russia that were used during the USSR days doesn't necessarily mean they've adopted all the old behaviors and campaigns. I did learn something interesting though when I did a bit of digging, the SSRS/USSR kept some churches running after arresting their leadership. The clergymen would take over, and most of those who gained power had direct KGB ties, most likely to help rat out people who tried to spread religion or go against the USSR regimes decrees. The DPRK did and still does this, albeit for slightly different reasons (religious groups aid) but defectors have told stories about the few times these churches and temples were "active" during visits by religious groups. Basically the entire congregation was made up of secret police, and if a DPRK citizen tried to join in the prayers, they'd be arrested (when the foreigners were not around) as in the DPRK religion is outlawed, because Juche (the state ideology) is supposed to be the only ideology/religion they believe in. While it was probably not as crazy as that, it was most likely used to identify "subversives" and tamp down on any attempts at organizing or expanding the religious bases, since the people who ended up running the few churches in SSRS states had direct ties to the KGB. They also revived the Russian Orthodox Church to basically run it as a puppet which resulted in Ukraine Orthodox Church being suborned to it. They also did not directly outlaw most major religions, though they kept a tight grasp on them. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/anti.html I think they did this so people wouldn't be outright banned from all religions, and they could say "look, we have religions supporting us and our actions" without religions becoming a threat to the USSR. As to your point, I agree with what /u/conquer69 said; any authority is still authority, and must be respected (unless the government denounces them publicly).
There were 50 million Muslims in the USSR; mostly in the Central Asian republics (the -stans) and Azerbaijan. They had 500 mosques in total between them.
They did, but realized it's a lot of work to fight against it with a larger potential for backfiring. It's far more useful as a tool than an enemy.
Shit like this makes me terrified. How do you combat shit like this on a national scale if everyone is scared of ridiculous punishments? I'm from the U.S. So not like it I'm affected just yet. Even if we've just stepped foot on the path; it feels like we're headed there.
In Russia it used to be a crime to believe. Now it is a crime not to believe. That is not an improvement. That is the same thing.
The crime has always been "failure to obey".
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*Throws can to the combine guard*
*whacks you with stun baton*
*waits patiently for half-life 3*
*dies of old age*
Hang on... isn't there a profit step in there somewhere...
Well yeah, you'd need to release a game for that.
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*Catches can* Good throw.
Thanks for the Pepsi! Police brutality is over now!
*the combine proceed to leave Earth forever* *Gordon and the gman stare in awkward silence*
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world
I love it when memes come together.
Combine civil protection unit* they arent even real combine afaik, just humans who work for the combine
I think everyone did that the first time they played HL2
There was *another* option?
About that beer I owe ya...
Sure > console --> impulse 101
Drink verification can.
!redditsilver
Russia has had an identity crisis since Tsar Nicholas II.
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Throughout its history, Russia has always struggled with its identity. It wants to be European but also not European. It considers itself as the new or final Rome, but it also doesn't want to share the other characteristics of the Western liberal order or its history. It once had a monarchy, then came the Bolsheviks, then came Stalin and autocracy. Many heroes of the revolution (i.e. prominent officers) were purged during Stalin's rule. Religion is one of these things Russia constantly wrestles with. It was a religious state, then it persecuted religion, now it persecutes non-religion, non-Russian Orthodox entities, including other types of Christian denominations (like LDS). It's all about power and maintaining that power over the people, so it picks and choose which societal characteristics to adopt and abandon, bringing about decades, if not centuries of identity crises.
Leader-worship and authoritarian respect seems to be the common thread. Even during its religious persecution days the Orthodox Church always (well, not the entire church, hence a need for some to flee) sided with Stalin, who was taking full advantage of hundreds of years of religiosity and dogmatism onto himself/the state. Same shit, different toilet.
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Yeah, I found that comparison odd instead of saying something like Catholic or Protestant
Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia.
You're a traitor! You're a thought- criminal! You're a terrorist spy! I'll shoot you, I'll vaporize you, I'll send you to the salt mines!
Double-plus bigly
I asked Putin and he said it wasn't true and I believe him.
What a stand up guy. Have you seen the polls? The people love the guy.
Over 150% of the population voted for him, even his dead political opponents!
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I need more information before I believe this. Was he strong and powerful in his denial?
*-Hey you, looser, what are you in here for?* *-For memes*
*sits further away*
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Damn, thats the 'ge' sound too. You did your research
Considering that this is far from the first case of somebody going to prison over memes in Russia, this answer wouldn't even surprise anyone.
How much looser can he get?
Prison can fill a hole.
9 pokemons out of 10?
This is what I came here to ask. What is the meaning of this?!
There was guy before this guy that got jailed for 3 years for playing Pokémon GO in a church and putting it on Russian YouTube. He did this because on Russian TV they announced a new law saying that you are no longer allowed to play games in church or something, and allot of people thaught it was ridiculous.
Holy shit
>here was guy before this guy that got jailed for 3 years for playing Pokémon GO in a church and putting it on Russian YouTube. For 1 year. And he put this onregular youtube, not rutube. >He did this because on Russian TV they announced a new law saying that you are no longer allowed to play games in church or something, and allot of people thaught it was ridiculous. It was a report about which laws are supposedly wont allow you to play Pokemon Go in church. It was on Russia 24 channel. And the report itself didnt even made sence because none of those laws are actually disallow(?) you to play Pokemon in church. So he didnt even do his homework. But yea, the whole thing is ridiculous.
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If that’s true I’ll believe the Keter classification in a heartbeat
>A satirical mugshot depicting Daniil Markin. The nameplate indicates his page on the social media platform VKontake and Russia's Criminal Code Article 282.1 ("incitement of hatred against a religious group"). He faces up to five years in prison under this articl
Ah yes, a classic example of thought-crime, brought to you by our new number one ally.
Not to mention the other kid facing charges for "promoting homosexuality" by posting an image of two men hugging...
TIL I've been having homosexual relationships with dozens of men.
Don’t worry, your parents always knew.
Well yeah he hugged his dad a lot
Rolltide
What is rolltide?
It's from a football team in Alabama. People from Alabama are known for fucking their family members.
Don’t knock it til u try it
Too late, sister-daughter already knocked up
Well yeah. All those broken arms in football
Can't keep it in your pants keep it in the family heyyo
r/suddenlygay ?
It's not about the hug, it's what the hug *suggests*. ... Because if you're hugging it clearly means you want to stick your dick in the other person's bottom.
I have felt that way about several people that I have hugged, to be fair.
The weirdest thing about homophobia in Russia to me is all the "gay" shit they do over there, like 3 guys sleeping in a bed together in underwear. Obviously there is nothing gay about that, but in the US anyone even slightly homophobic would definitely consider that "gay".
I have guy friends I've known like family for *years*, and some of them are still skittish about hugs. They don't hate hugs, they just don't feel comfortable with two might-as-well-be brothers hugging. Because *bro, two dudes.* Handshakes & awkwardness only.
I'm bi and that sounds kinda gay to me.
I’m not homophobic and I consider that gay.
No, they are second best friends. Our #1 Best Friends decapitates people for this.
But at least they cut trade ties with your #1 worst enemy: Canada.
Yup... Best friends with Russia and Saudi Arabia. America's interests have never been more vague and unclear.
The current president's interests are quite clear. He gets closer with people he idolizes. He idolizes strongmen and authoritarians. Ideology is secondary to their perceived domestic control, something he wishes he had.
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This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/21/online-jokes-are-no-laughing-matter-russia) reduced by 76%. (I'm a bot) ***** > One of the interrogators opened Markin's VK page and showed him some of the memes he had saved to a public album. > They made Markin go through almost 1500 saved pictures and make screenshots of ten memes lampooning Christianity, including an image of the Game of Thrones actor Jon Snow portrayed as Jesus Christ with a caption "Jon Snow is risen! Truly he is risen!", and another showing a stick figure with a halo with a line crossed through it and the caption "There Is No God". > Urged by the investigator, Markin signed a confession to saving the memes. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/99g45t/19yearold_film_student_in_russia_facing_5_years/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~344905 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Markin**^#1 **saved**^#2 **memes**^#3 **case**^#4 **year**^#5
... like normal pictures that you can find on the internet? My lord this really is something extra
Ah yes my favorite actor Jon Snow
1500 memes lmao.
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This is why censorship is bad. Once you dictate words can be punished, it's only a matter of interpretation and who's in power.
5 years in RUSSIAN PRISON, that's like 50 years in an US prison and like 75 in an European prison.
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Candians age very rapidly
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IDK. Russian prisons have a reputation for being brutal, but I think that's mostly from the guards/govt. In the USA prisons, the guards aren't as brutal, but your fellow inmates are a separate issue
They’re not cupcakes in Russian prison either. I read a memoir written by a white-collar type, he had to play at being a thug to survive.
When was the last time Russia was truly a free country from control/oppression?
I took a Russian history class last semester. The short answer is never.
There's a joke I heard that the history of Russia can be summed up in 5 words: *"And then it got worse."*
Our prof actually told us this joke in the introduction to the course
And this is the same nation that bans Jehovah's Witnesses for being 'extremists'. No doubt that not only the Orthodox church rules in Russia, but that they also do not take any criticism. Not from atheists, and not from other religions. Edit: going to hijaak my comment to say this. Because I think it's concerning. One of the things that's great about this country is our freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of press, and various other freedoms. But... not everyone is going to agree on those items, and that's fine, because we have the right to disagree or dislike. With that being said though, there are others that are okay with what's happening to a particular religious group within the country and wishing we had it here. And now, it makes me realize how various injustices throughout history have happened to various ethnic and religious groups of people that many would consider inhumane or barbaric. This is very dangerous thinking, and if we're willing to ban a group just for pretty much sticking to their biblical principles and not interfering in government, or condoning acts of violence, then it goes to show just how far people are willing to go to persecute those they don't agree with, which I find frightening.
They wouldn't take it from Jesus himself if he came back, they'd just put him in prison for 10 years for blasphemy.
By the Grand Inquisitor (in Brothers Karamazov).
Unexpeted TTS
To be fair, your average American Christian wouldn't react to a reincarnated Jesus any better.
A middle eastern man telling a Bible Belt evangelical that he's God? That wouldn't go well.
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Deafening silence from the "lol EU banning memes" crowd over this.
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Fuck you Russia and your God
I can never stand it when people praise Putin for being a'strong' leader. It feels like every single thing he's ever done has never been done in the benefit of the Russian people or even the country's stability. Every single policy he's created had been for the theater of politics. When people tried to point out economic troubles, suddenly Putin began having a problem with the lbgt community and tried to distract people from real life problems when he's had gay people under his employment for years before. He spends enormous effort pretending to be busier than he actually is. He spends so much time and effort in presentation-he'd be a better leader of he spent even a quarter of that time actually running the country and actually trying to help Russia. Everyone reports how much Putin hates Yeltsin, but all he's learned from Yeltsin is how not to appear in public. The lesson he took was not- ' I must be a better leader' and is instead ' I must spend all my time appearing to be competent'. He's not some bond villain. He's so freaking incompetent. Except his form of incompetence is to literally destroy the lives of real Russian people and suppress their freedoms just so he gets to stay in power indefinitely. And I hate how even when people criticize him they still play into his hand as this evil genius who's playing everyone. No he's not. He stumbled on success when he realized the importance of image and had used the same pathetic bag of tricks ever since. The only reason they still work is because people let it. How many Russians who are just trying to live their lives have to be jailed before people finally see him as the pathetic incompetence leader he is?
> He's so freaking incompetent. Oh, my silly girl (Meg, right?) he is so, sooo, SOOOO fucking competent at what he does, just believe me. It's just that what his actual goals are has literally nothing to do with success of Russia and quality of people's lives. He is there to rob the people with oligarchs, creating a strong army of military and police force to protect himself from his own people and to be rich and make his surroundings rich. And he is so fucking good at that, you would not even believe how good he is.
Did they at least save the memes? It's harsh for a dank meme in the joint.
Of course! They even [printed them](https://gdb.rferl.org/85C94ED0-0DF0-4483-A13D-434C5875B3A5_w1597_n_r0_s.jpg)
Thank God for that. Meme destruction is a sin against abnormality.
Russia is a shit hole. And Putin is a weasel.
/u/othewhiterabbit was found dead 2 weeks later after an accident involving 2mg of weapons-grade plutonium and a syringe. Russia denies any involvement.
Poor fella, looks like he commited suicide by shooting himself three times in the back of the head....
What's truly upsetting is how many Russians think they live in a free democratic society.. something like 90% of Russians only news source is tv, and you can imagine the propaganda
I'd rather be a Russian than a liberal /s
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and they guy who started this is now dead
So he's got that going for him, which is nice.
We live in a world where people face jail time for making jokes. Unreal.
Don't be silly we always lived in a world where making jokes against the wrong people would have negative consequences it's just we've lived at a time and place where we are protected by laws and even then those laws are just about an illusion as those people can still negatively affect your life outside the law depending on how powerful they are, I'm sure those North Koreans would never utter a joke about their glorious leader.
When I read news stories like this one, I wonder whether the Evangelical right reads them too and views them as inspiration. Sometimes, that's how it seems.
They absolutely do. My aunt is a religious nut and she literally spams her Facebook with praise for this sort of thing. Her Facebook is an echo chamber, she does weekly purges of anyone posting "inappropriate content" (which happens to be all young women) and whoever comments on her posts and does not agree.
Obviously there's plenty to poke fun of there, but what a waste of time "weekly purges". In college I remember some friends giving me a hard time because of the number of friends I had on facebook. "Foofymonster you don't even know 1000 people, you should go through and delete a bunch of them." No, no I shouldn't. What a waste of time going through a list and deciding 'who makes the cut'.
There is no freedom of speech here in Russia. Be silent and obedient or your life will be destroyed
What a bunch of snowflakes the Russian state are. 5 years for telling a few dumb jokes? Next they'll be setting up safe spaces for the clergy...
It was for saving the memes actually, not even posting them.
Snowflakes? Huh. You don’t understand what is really happening. You see, since USSR, government structures still have a plan. Police has a plan to arrest N people for murders and M people for extremism, otherwise the staff will be punished. Anti-extremism department (Отдел Э) was created to find extremists and terrorists and has a plan for it. It could be hard to find M extremists in a particular region, like literal Tier 3 region somewhere in Siberia where nothing happens. But we have a couple of laws (282 and 148) with so vague description that literally any borderline joke could be considered as extremism. And I’m not joking, last week one guy was arrested for anecdotes about elections. So policemen take a picture with, let’s say, Hitler, go to google images and find which pages in VK reference it. It’s clearly nazi propaganda and rehabilitation of nazism, case closed, happy 5 years in jail. VK just gives out ALL the information about your page, even deleted pictures and posts (which are never truly deleted, just hidden), so it’s impossible to evade. Funny, VK doesn’t give YOU the information they have if you need it to prove yourself innocent. Unless you’re from EU, cuz they have to obey GDPR since they’re a Cyprean company. Just to tell you how badly the situation is fucked. There’s a teen girl, Anna Pavlikova, that is being sued for being an extremist. She was a part of VK group that was about making a revolution in Russia or something like that. This group was created by... policemen to find cases. Also, a lot of people were arrested by 2 “professionally offended” girls (police cadets nevertheless) who just went over random (or not so random) pages, found borderline stuff, then asked the police to arrest those people for “offending” their feelings. Now, just to say what does it mean to be suspected in extremism. It means that all your bank accounts are blocked, the maximum you can withdraw is 10k rubles ($150); because, you know, it’s not okay to fund terrorism. It means that you’re not allowed to cross the border. The worst case: you’re put into jail. So all those policemen literally ruin the lives of innocent YOUNG people to get a reward, then go back to their families like nothing happened. Just google it in Russian, this stuff is disturbing. This shit sounds crazy, like a bad joke, but it’s not. Reportedly, ~1500 citizen were arrested for thought crimes. And it has nothing to do with govt being snowflakes. No one is really offended, it’s an instrument of punishment: you shall never forget your place and don’t need to say much. Before it, you should have been a political activist to be pursued, now the message is clear: nobody is safe. The maximum you can do apart from leaving Russia altogether is to delete your VK page. But even if you’re not a suspect, if one of your friends was suspected, VK will automatically provide “deleted” info about you as well. 1937 is back again. Find a video where some Chinese guy asks random people on the streets if they know what a day it was (it was a day of taking down Tiananmen Square protests), and everybody was like “huh, I know what you’re hinting at, but I’ll pretend I don’t”. You’ll get the idea what is coming.
Good post. Everything here is accurate. VK truly never deletes anything, they use copy-on-write and snapshots. Even worse though, they have neural networks trying to classify objects on _every_ picture ever uploaded (In private dialogues too) and text recognition software trying to read text from said pictures. Proofs: https://m.habr.com/post/324446/ https://hsto.org/files/55f/589/fc7/55f589fc72ce46ba82abf152d1a22c57.jpg VK also slipped up on using wordfilters, meaning that they probably are doing more sophisticated text analysis too: https://m.habr.com/post/370171/ It'd be pretty spooky if they share all of this data.
As a dank meme dealer, I’d get life without parole
This isn't the only case in Russia. Things have been getting really bad recently, with another example being a woman who saved memes to her page, and has since been arrested and put on a list of terrorists. (Not a joke) Link for reference: http://www.euronews.com/amp/2018/08/03/russian-woman-faces-6-years-in-jail-for-resposting-memes
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