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Comment by GuiA | Hacker News Reader

In a dictatorship, if the ones holding power want to take control of an internet company holding data about the personal lives of hundreds of millions of people, they do so by ousting the CEO and taking control the hard way.

In a democracy with a free market, if the ones holding power want to take control of an internet company which holds data about the personal lives of hundreds of millions of people, they do so by strategically adding members to the company's board who are part of the oligarchy in place.

Putin's Russia still has a lot to learn! :')

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> they do so by strategically adding members to the company's board who are part of the oligarchy in place

Seriously? I'd like you to back that up. Because honestly, that's just baseless conspiracy-mongering.

I understand people don't like Rice joining Dropbox (which is what I presume you're referring to) due to her political history and leadership role in the Iraq war -- which is totally understandable, since she's a public figure with strong political associations.

But anyone suggesting that her joining Dropbox is not in order to help their international/governmental expansion (which makes perfect business sense), but is rather part of a nefarious secret plot to undermine the privacy of Dropbox users, really has to show at least a shred of evidence for it.

And implying that the level of freedom, or rule of law, in American society is somehow comparable to the level in Russian society, shows a tremendous amount of naiveté. American government certainly isn't perfect, but it's worlds apart from Russia's.

The problem with the West is that you guys _believe_ the law to be the same for those at the top and at the bottom of the pyramid.

Russians, on the contrary, _know_ that equality belongs on the same bookshelf with unicorns. That the government does not work the way the government tells kids it works.

Let me be blunt: To be a seriously profitable business in 2014 you must sleep with the government.

Those who disagree retire early. Ask PrivacyHarbor.com or that other more famous email provider who had to quit.

Let me be blunter: The public's Kardashian-Oprah-Fox-Oscar-elections megatrip must not be disturbed by the reports of how things actually work. There is simply no need for us to know, because today we can't legally act on this knowledge.

If history teaches us anything, you will agree with me very soon - but in retrospect[1]. The lines are being drawn as we speak.

As for Dropbox proper, they are wisely killing 2 birds with 1 Rice — demonstrating obedience to the ruling class and sending a clear signal to potential customers: "Choose us if you want to stay in business. We are on the right side.".

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1 - I am fully aware that you have no idea what I am talking about. It comes from experience, which you are only about to gain.

I think the pushback about Rices' appointment is more due to the fact that she's a war criminal with the blood of innocents on her hands.

What company wants that in their board?

For those that don't get the implied reference in the second scenario, I believe it is a (fairly accurate) reference to Dropbox/Rice.

You're not wrong, precisely, but the former method has the virtues of simplicity, forthrightness, and the presentation of a salutary example to others who might find themselves in a similar position.

Also, people from the West have been telling Russians that Russia has a lot to learn at least since the fall of the Soviet regime, if not since the days of the tsars. Some who've given such advice have done so out of good intentions. Others did so with malice aforethought, and have brought about considerable grief in so doing, as for example during the post-Soviet interregnum, when Yeltsin let himself be swindled out of a huge fraction of his country's wealth to the enormous detriment of the Russian people -- I've seen estimates of premature and unnecessary deaths thus caused which range into the low to middle seven figures.

Part of the reason why Putin enjoys such wide approval in the nation he governs is because he's not particularly inclined to listen to Westerners bearing gifts, whatever their intentions in so doing may be.

This sounds like shit, Putin-ordered propaganda to me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades. HN is not free from this, apparently.

Well, the source on which I'm relying most strongly here, especially for estimates of the death toll of the post-Soviet interregnum, is a newspaper whose American-expatriate writers were hounded out of Russia, shortly after Medvedev "succeeded" Putin to the presidency, over a single article satirizing one of "Medvedev's" new policies.

I suppose you can argue that these events were merely part of an incredibly recondite plan on Putin's part to substantiate otherwise baseless propaganda of the sort you regard my prior comment to be. I can't imagine how anyone could make such an argument with a straight face, but that's not the same as assuming it's not possible.

I agree - in general this is the raise of Russian nationalism. It started in 1970s, then 1990s were really tough, now it is on the rise.

And democracy in Russia is not at all my concern (and concern of my friends here and there). If things continues like this, then after the western influence is removed, Uzbekis and others will be on the plate :( Then after all Uzbekis are gone, Armenians will need to move their patriarch to Moscow... and so on.

What are you talking about? Can you be a bit more concrete and give a link or another reference to your "source"? You are changing subject of the discussion, derailing it into some allegations against "The West" and its past alleged wrongdoings against Russia, and you are praising Putin at the same time - that really smells like a nowadays Russian internet propaganda, there is so much of this on forums these days, this is what I'm talking about: http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/rus...

My source is the eXile, and while their archives from the years during which they published in print are in some disarray, you may safely take this article [1] by John Dolan as representative of its editorial stance on the matter under discussion. I grant that this does not constitute a primary source; on the other hand, my reading of the relevant history gives me no reason to find the claim at all incredible. Perhaps your understanding of history suggests otherwise. If so, you would do well to detail that understanding in order to support the claim you're making, rather than persisting in your attempts to discredit my statements by means of blatant ad hominem.

You seem to be reading a great deal into my statements on the subject. A more objective reading of those statements will reveal that I have uttered no more praise for Vladimir Putin than merely that he has consistently acted in Russia's interests, as is the minimal obligation of any head of state toward his nation. That's more or less what I've said about those from the West who have purported to act on Russia's behalf in recent history, as well; while I grant some of them acted in accord with their claimed motivations, others have acted in accord with their own interests and without regard to those of Russia, a claim which seems to me rather trivially defensible.

I am a citizen of the United States, and I have no particular love for Russia beyond the basic respect which any citizen of one sovereign nation may reasonably be expected to extend to another. Where you're getting the moral weighting, which you insist upon applying to my remarks in this thread, is a mystery to me, but regardless of its origins, the interpretation which results is entirely your own, and does not well represent the facts of the matter.

Of course you're welcome to your own opinion, as is anyone who participates in civil conversation, but I will thank you very kindly to desist from further accusing me of being in the pay of the Russian FSB. Quite aside from the fact that to act in such fashion would constitute a betrayal of the nation which has commanded my lifelong loyalty, I am, as already noted, subject to the laws of the United States, and I cannot imagine any way in which I could act as you've accused me of doing without placing myself in grave contravention of those laws.

[1]: http://www.exile.ru/print.php?ARTICLE_ID=6677&IBLOCK_ID=35

I did not know exile.ru till I saw the link in your comment, but what I gather from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_eXile it doesn't seem to be a serious source of historical knowledge. It's a Moscow based satirical tabloid - how came you, an American citizen, know it so well?

By means of an amazing new technology on which Ames and Dolan, the eXile's erstwhile proprietors, saw fit for some reason to publish much of the same content which they included in the pages of their newspaper. This new technology of which I speak is colloquially known among anglophones as the World Wide Web. Perhaps you've heard of it?

I'm asking cause you were referring to "their archives from the years during which they published in print". Were you not suggesting you knew the "historical facts" from their printed version and it was difficult to find those articles in their online archives?

Personal attacks, such as your repeated insinuation that a fellow user is a propagandist, are not allowed on Hacker News. Please do not do this again.

It's dismaying that the commenter most attempting to contribute substantive discussion to this thread would be treated like this. If you want to talk about things that HN is disappointingly "not free from ... apparently", such accusations belong at the top of the list.

(My comment does not endorse aaronem's arguments, only his right not to be treated uncivilly on this site.)

That it's necessary for you to include such a disclaimer, in order to avoid being misread, saddens me. I appreciate your efforts, in defense of civil discourse on HN, nonetheless.

No. I was suggesting that, now that they've been booted out of Russia and retooled around an exclusively online presence which lacks any firsthand information about events in Russia and has therefore degenerated into a useless ideological exercise, they don't care very much whether their old website is navigable or indeed even working.

I'd like to say I'm not sure how you reached such an erroneous conclusion, but that wouldn't be true. I'm pretty sure that that occurred because you are proceeding from the assumption that I'm sitting in a windowless room in a Moscow office building, earning thirty-some bucks' worth of rubles a day by sitting in front of a computer typing what my FSB manager tells me to type. As I said before, you're welcome to that assumption if it pleases you to adopt it, but it's not particularly conversant with reality, not that I expect you to take my word for that.

While I don't like what Russia is doing regarding civil rights and Ukraine - accusing the people you debate of being paid to tell lies is poor form and hurts the point you're trying to make.

Especially because most people that support Putin do so not for money, but because they are Russian nationalists and consider Putin foreign policy a good idea. That's sad, and explains nicely why Russia couldn't transform into democratic country, but whatever, it doesn't mean everybody who thinks differently is paid.

I'd hate to think anyone misread me as speaking in support of Putin for any reason. To conclude, from my explanation of why people in Russia support Putin, that I must support Putin as well, strikes me as bearing the same relationship to the more ordinary jump to a desired conclusion, as an Olympic-class pole vault does to a bunny hop; further, if it's no longer possible for the average interlocutor to recognize the difference between explaining a position and supporting one, then I can only weep for the lost art of intellectual debate.

HN is a social echo chamber [http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/28232.html]. Given it's libertarian leaning, it would be a big surprise, if it would try to objectively assess a topic that is under heavy propaganda from all sides.

Actually the HN community is politically deeply divided. Complaints about its ideological bias thus tend to contradict one another. For example, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7626420 says much the opposite.

You're right on the important thing, though. It's too much to expect HN to "objectively assess a topic that is under heavy propaganda from all sides". Objective assessment requires time, calm, reconsideration, and a high ratio of information per conclusion—plus a discourse in which people respond first to what is true in others' comments rather than to what is false in them. That bar is too high for an internet forum, or at least this one.

Whether he is paid for his propaganda work or not, or just brainwashed and honestly believing in Putin I don't know; these are equally probable options, but they have the same cause: Putin's propaganda.

Anyway, it is well known, that Russia is spamming online forums with propaganda: http://stratrisks.com/geostrat/7796 Honestly, I've seen many, many comments like that under any article criticising Putin and Kremlin, and I feel like I can recognise common traits of these comments - apart from the message there is also the weird, even though often very sophisticated language... Many people do not know what's going on, though, that's why I decided to say something, and I don't care about down-votes.

So much for intellectual debate [1], then, I suppose. Congratulations, if you like, on having genuinely astounded me; perhaps it's merely foolish naïveté on my part, but I'd never have expected anyone to conclude that I am a traitor to my country, based merely on the facts that I know a little bit about modern history and that my English is better than yours.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7630065

Have you really never previously encountered suspicions aimed at those with book larnin' and fancy talk?

Sure I have, even on HN. But, here at least, they're much more the exception than the rule, and I've never before encountered such an egregious example of the type. Even growing up in rural Mississippi, no one ever accused me of betraying my country because I talked fancy.

Yeah. Here on HN, what you see is mostly just valid skepticism of credentialism that sometimes bleeds into a backlash against all those with credentials.

True, though I don't fall foul of that myself, because I don't have any credentials for anyone to be skeptical about. I do have a tendency to indulge in rhetoric, though, and I've been pleasantly surprised on many occasions by how willing my fellow HN commenters seem to be to tolerate that deviation.

Welcum 2 'merika.

It's easy to assume that the problem lies with the assorted hicks, rednecks, and crackers who make up so much of this country's population.

As a Mississippi son, though, I have the good fortune to know better. After all, I doubt there are all that many hicks, rednecks, and/or crackers who participate on HN, my own humble self aside.

Do I understand correctly that you're implying that case with "dictatorship" is in place? If so, you are obviously wrong. Good example of "the hard way" was notorious Yukos' case, which is drastically different from this one. Mail.Ru have a good share in stocks for the long time and that's a matter for discussion I won't participate in, if they can be considered to be "part of the oligarchy in place" (they can). UCP has the rest of the stocks, which belonged to different people the last year. Durov had only 12% for quite a long time already. And Durov himself is alive and well and left Russia only after getting rid of Vk completely, and some say he wasn't even fired (they say that he wrote retirement letter on 23.03 already, and never revoked it; Durov claims otherwise; where's the truth remains to be unknown).

In both cases, the ones holding power gain access to the data through "lawful" secret requests. You don't need to control the company to exercise control over the company.

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