Yandex: Has Russia Embraced the Chinese Approach to Social Media and Online?

August 23, 2022

The answer to the question “Has Russia Embraced the Chinese Approach to Technology?” is, “Seems like it.”

Like China, Russia has come to understand the power and threat online services represent to the entities holding nation state power. Technology companies which follow different rules than “regular” countries have to be brought under control or killed outright. Russia is into control.

Vkontakte top dog is the scion of Mr. Putin’s top dog. If you are into Russian names, the boss of Vkontakte is Vladimir Kirienko. Mr. Putin’s confidante and senior administrator is Sergei Kirienko. But a tame CEO is not enough. Threats have to be put in a cage and made subject to a higher power, not people with mobile phones.

Vkontakte is a semi-Facebook, just in Russian. It has about 100 million users. The company’s properties include Mail.ru, the social network Odnoklassniki, and a food delivery outfit. According to “Yandex Reaches Binding Deal to Divest News Service, Homepage to VK”:

Yandex said it is pursuing a “strategic exit from its media businesses” with the sale of Yandex.News, Yandex.ru and the Yandex.Zen blogging tool to VK. The Yandex.ru domain will be renamed dzen.ru under VK’s control and further development. Yandex’s main page — with search, mail and non-media tools — will be renamed ya.ru.

What happens to Yandex email addresses? In addition to being read and analyzed by the watch dogs, the future of Yandex mail is fuzzy.

The key take away for me is that China and Russia recognize the threat social media and online information pose. If these nation states’ concerns are valid, will countries with uncontrolled social media operating without meaningful oversight and regulation tear themselves apart?

China’s and Russia’s strategic military thinkers could be anticipating this result. Which view is correct? Social media is the Zucker’s view of bringing people together or the opposite?

Interesting question to consider.

Stephen E Arnold, August 23, 2022

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Government, News, Social Media

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.