Russian government edits Wikipedia page on Flight MH17

A Russian government official has been accused of editing the Russian-lanugage version of the MH17 Wikipedia page.

Malaysian Airline Flight, MH17, was shot down over eastern Ukraine on Thursday, 17 July. The flight was on a scheduled run from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it crashed, killing all 298 people onboard. In recent days, the focus has shifted from the crash itself to the topic of who is responsible. As the world started pointing fingers at Russia, President Putin immediately placed the blame on the Ukrainian military. Read More »

Russians’ online data must be stored in-country: Duma bill

A bill adopted by the lower house of the Russian parliament 4 July will require Internet companies that store personal data on Russian citizens to locate such data on servers inside the country, The Moscow Times reports.

Russian officials contend that requiring the use of Russian servers reduces citizens’ susceptibility to cybercrime and fraud. Read More »

Innovators welcome at Deutsche Welle’s Global Media Forum

Nearly 2,500 media and communication professionals from around the world gathered at the World Conference Center in Bonn, Germany from 30 June-2 July for the Deutsche Welle’s annual Global Media Forum.

This year’s conference, “From Information to Participation: Challenges for the Media,” featured panels and workshops focused on practical approaches to adjusting industry standards and practices to meet the needs of an increasingly global audience and market. Read More »

Crowdfunding campaign to support Russian eco journalists

On 6 June, Transitions launched a new crowdfunding campaign on IndieVoices,  Weathering the Storm: The Dangers of Going Green in Putin’s Russia, to raise money for Ecoreporter.ru.

As the space for independent media in Russia continues to shrink, journalists face career and, in some cases, life threats for reporting on certain issues. Read More »

Dushanbe suspected in Google, YouTube blackouts

The disappearance of popular Internet services in Tajikistan this week appears to follow a recurrent pattern of foreign websites being blocked by the authorities.

On 12 June, Internet users reported being unable to access Google, including their Gmail accounts, Radio Free Europe reports. The country’s Association of Internet Service Providers confirmed that most providers had blocked Google. Read More »

Serbian bloggers censored for criticizing flood relief efforts

     

"Don't let them flood you." Image is a screenshot from Twitter.

In late May 2014, Serbia was hit hard by flooding in what became the largest natural disaster the region has seen in the past century. The catastrophic floods not only have taken a yet unknown number of lives and homes, but have also brought to light the pressure and censorship the current government, led by the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), has been placing on media.
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Youth@Work in Moldova

Youth in Moldova are taking the future into their own hands. It started with the United Nations Development Group’s decision to launch Post-2015 Dialogues on Implementation into 50 countries. Then, the UNDP, Emerson College’s Engagement Lab and the National Youth Council of Moldova formed a coalition to tackle the issue of development in Moldova. Read More »

So long, Mr. Durov, and thanks for all the fish

This post is part of RuNet Echo, a Global Voices project to interpret the Russian language internet.

After more than a year of rumors, the stockholders of Russia’s largest online social network, Vkontakte, have finally fired founder and CEO Pavel Durov. Read More »

Crowdfunding kicks off in the Czech Republic with the help of Hithit.com

Ukrainians, Russians on Social Networks: ‘In Case of War, Everyone Will Lose!’

This post is part of our Special Coverage Ukraine’s #Euromaidan Protests.

Almost a week after being ousted, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych surfaced in the Russian Federation, while Russian military forces have flooded Crimea, an autonomous region of Ukraine located on the Crimean Black Sea peninsula. Read More »

Ukrainian journalists take regime’s corruption public with YanukovychLeaks

YanukovychLeaks.org is a new website created by Ukrainian journalists to publish documents that were found in Victor Yanukovych’s residence. Many of them document evidence of massive corruption of the regime.

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The Caucasus Network: in blogs, Russian is the common language

This article is part of an extensive RuNet Echo study of the North Caucasus blogosphere. Explore the complete report and personal stories on The Caucasus Network page.

Russian is the lingua franca that bridges the republics of the North Caucasus. None of the many indigenous non-Russian languages dominate any of the blogging platforms in the North Caucasus, even the forums dedicated exclusively to regions’ internal issues operate in Russian. Read More »

Chronicles of Euromaidan: digging into the social media

“One morning, after the dissolution of the student protests on Maidan, we woke up in another country,”  said Pavlo Pedenko, one of the creators of Maidan Chronicles, as he explained the pretext of the idea to build a platform that preserves and gathers all the data from social media related to the Euromaidan movement in Ukraine. Read More »

New Website Collects Reports and Data About Bribes in Hungary

Hungary, like many other countries in the region, has an on-going corruption problem on almost every level of governance. A new project created by investigative website Átlátszó.hu and Transparency International, Fizettem.hu, has taken on the task of collecting reports from citizens about cases of bribery and corruption in the country. Read More »