I live in Belarus, haven't heard of anyone locked for news cached on their phone. Could you provide sources of that info? I read all kinds of news, what if I am in danger...
Proposed solution was - disable all media caching in Telegram.
Question. If you read Belarusian news, have you noticed that tut.by, being a quite decent, balanced news site in, say, 2013, 2014, in last years of its existence, maybe 2018, 2019, 2020 was quickly degrading, somewhere towards the Radio of the Thousand Hills? Deliberately falsifying the picture of reality for its readers?
(Personally, by the beginning of 2020, long before the election, I had a text in mind, called "Осторожно, tut.by". Just didn't have time to write it up and publish.)
There are no sources to be trusted. And let me warn you against trusting Zerkalo.
But armed with the scientific method, one can use any propaganda as an informative source. And the more it contradicts one's views the more informative it is. On the other hand, reading confirmations of what one saw already confirmed many times is basically a waste of time.
My attempt for a more elaborate version of this: http://avodonosov.blogspot.com/2024/09/scientific-method-for...
As for the deliberate manipulations and back to the HN topic. Have you noticed that the Iranian man was sentenced "after" tweeting a dot? Not "because", not "for" , but simply "after"? If you read the article, there is no evidence of causal link between the dot posted and the arrest. The arrest just happened chronologically after. The actual charges are different and the man has a long history of being at odds with the ruling regime.
I think that's an intentionally misleading title. And you seem fallen for it, replying "what for people in Belarus are being locked up".
I understand why the regime is posting all these "confession videos" - it is the same propaganda, but aiming to coral people into being afraid to read news. And it seems to work. (And in a way opposition media is helping regime with this task.)
And no, I am not suggesting to not read. Someone on hn is plenty equipped to get through these things technologically, without becoming another piece of regime propaganda and/or getting their life ruined. It is absurdity of what people in civilized country in 21st century are subjected to is what drives me nuts.
I hope it's clear I am not supporting the arrest. I just don't like fakes.
> I do personally know people locked up for 2+ years for clicking the like button (and not after clicking on the button) on the article in telegram.
What are the official charges? I did a quick search. Actions like this fall under article 19.11 of the Administrative Code. (https://etalonline.by/document/?regnum=hk2100091). Distribution, production, or possession with the goal of distribution, of information products containing calls to extremist activity.
Likes and subscriptions to such sources may be considered their endorsement and also fall under this article. https://www.court.gov.by/ru/mogilevskij/oblastnoj/sud/press_... https://lida.gov.by/printv/ru/2023-edi-ru/view/o-merax-proti...
(I know you probably can't access the URLs from abroad, maybe will post screenshots later).
But the penalties under this article do not include prison. It can result in fine, confiscation of the device used, administrative arrest (max 15 days), community service.
Aren't you confusing people who got 2+ years in prison for a like with people who say they got 2+ years in prison for a like?
Overall, that's not a topic for the HN forum, but let me say that the political views you (and many others) seem to have, are mistaken, in my opinion. The mistake is not in what you see. The suppression of the protest exists, although maybe not in such extreme form as you think.
The mistake is in the gigantic "elephants in the room" that you don't see and don't account for.
I neither study this subject, nor watch it closely. And I can imagine anything. But until I see real facts of such arrests, I will stay in doubt. And will continue reading whatever I want.
Few months back a new hire quit on his second day when he saw that, because he was afraid he might get into trouble since he has to regularly travel to Russia (he was from, eh, somewhere in Eastern Europe or the Balkans or some such – I forgot).
We had some discussions about whether that was completely paranoid and stupid, or whether it was somewhat reasonable/understandable.
I was firmly in the last camp. Yes, maybe the chance of actually suffering consequences is small and in that sense it's paranoid, but people buy lottery tickets with a lower chance of winning. The arbitrariness of it is the point.
Either way, I certainly don't think he was making stuff up. He could have left at any time without any reason. We weren't holding him captive.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2024/08/15/us-russ...
While small, the chance of getting caught up in these shenanigans is far higher than that of buying a winning lottery ticket. And the potential penalties much worse than could be alleviated by most any prize won in the lottery. (If they were from one of Russia's allies, such as Serbia or Hungary, they probably wouldn't have much to worry about. But if they're from a NATO country, then definitely so).
We see they had a project in 2022 that did provide some drones, but this seems to have been in the context of supporting search and rescue operations and the like, not military operations.
Razom maintains that it does not provide military supplies of any kind. Let alone "weapons and ammunition" per the FSB charges.
Overall the charges seem to have as much credibility as the initial charge against her of "swearing in a public place".
But in any case, my question stands. Let's say a US citizen donated to a fund that supplied drones to Russia. Said drones do not carry a military payload, but can be used for recon and artillery targeting. What would you think about this person?
Whether it continued to do so by the time of her donation (in late 2023) -- being as Razom does seem to have shifted its emphasis in recent years (completely independent of any recent "sanitizing" of their website as you allege, but based on my own recollection of their messaging 2022-2023) -- is a different matter.
That's all I have time for at the moment. I may comment further again in 1-2 days.
Meanwhile let's remember that the arrest (and draconian sentencing) were in themselves a very deliberate form of propaganda. It's not like the various Russian agencies could begin to care about a $51 donation. They did what they did for certain reasons, one of which was to send some very specific messages -- on one hand to the U.S. government; but also to their own people, both inside the Motherland and abroad.
That latter message being: "We're watching you, wherever you are, and however small and unimportant you think you are - so don't you even begin to think of crossing us."
This case was probably particularly appealing to them in part precisely because the charges could be presented as borderline plausible (rather than being simply trumped up from scratch). Even if they would ultimately prove to be quite flimsy if evaluated by the standards of countries with actual working justice systems, as seems to be the case here.
It's just another part of their playbook.
How is that relevant? You're trying to equate someone's personal opinion to the Russian government putting someone in prison for 12-year due to $51?
And that's far from the most egregious example. There are plenty of people in Russian prisons for much less than that (e.g. reciting poetry or ambiguous social media posts).
Anyway regardless of anyone's personal opinion that's not how sanction enforcement or the US judicial system on the whole works. The U.S. Treasury Department has allowed transactions related to humanitarian causes (and a bunch of other cases) so what are you even talking about?