Meet the New Boss

[sdelmonte]

His name is Alexander Mamut. He owns SUP (a fact buried just below the surface on SUP's website). He is a media mogul these days. He was a buddy of Yeltsin. He is a friend of Vladimir Putin. He seems, based on a cursory Googlesearch, to be rather unsavory.

I am not worried that he will crack down on smut or the like. I can't see Russian media moguls acting like American ones on that subject. I am more concerned that we are now blogging to a site that promotes a dictator running an unstable empire and that might impose other forms of censorship.

I really hope I am jumping the gun on this. And that I have read too many Arkady Renko novels. But anything related to Putin - who seems to be tightening his grip on the Kremlin even as his term is supposedly coming to an end - makes me nervous.

ETA: Here is a posting about the sale from a tech site called ValleyWag. Which is not at all optimistic about LJ. And which states that LJ was under siege by the weird fanfic community and waan't worth the effort for 6A. Even wonder how we look to the rest of the world? Now we know.

Comments

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

Take my word for it--Valleywag isn't worth reading. It's the Silicon Valley equivalent of Gawker: nothing but gossip, unconfirmed scandal, and hyperbole.

[(Anonymous)]

Valleywag's all snark, no substance.

I have a vague, unsubstantiated suspicion that this sale may have something to do with the fact that Russia's been having issues with dissidents using Livejournal. The outage a few months ago was purportedly due to a Russian-based DDOS attack, and there was some funny stuff going with LJ & censorship of the dissident's communities at about the same time as Strikethrough.

If the Russians want more control over LJ's communities to weed out the dissidents the simplest way to do so is to buy Livejournal.

But that's pure paranoid speculation. Maybe they're just being good little capitalists.

-- Leva

[sdelmonte]

I can see the Putinites wanting to do that, but they could also just deny access. The Chinese do that constantly.

It's definitely paranoid to think that. But Putin has earned it.

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I have to say that if on Soviet LJ, content is censored for you, I'm not going to be too happy.

[panther-nesmith.livejournal.com]

I had wondered what they thought of us. I figured it wasn't that we were crusaders fighting for reasonable free speech.

And I am slightly uneasy about this as well, after reading a couple articles about SUP. Putin has always made me uneasy, and having someone close to him running the company calling the shots here is worrisome.

Still, not fleeing just yet.

I wonder how many of those journals created during 6As era were for fandom activity?