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fatherboxx)
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Interesting NY Time article on Russian surveillance technologies and the potential for export. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/03/technology/russia-ukraine-surveillance-tech.html Excerpts: quote:“It’s made people very paranoid, because if you communicate with anyone in Russia, you can’t be sure whether it’s secure or not. They are monitoring traffic very actively,” said Alena Popova, a Russian opposition political figure and digital rights activist. “It used to be only for activists. Now they have expanded it to anyone who disagrees with the war.” quote:They add up to the beginnings of an off-the-shelf tool kit for autocrats who wish to gain control of what is said and done online. One document outlining the capabilities of various tech providers referred to a “wiretap market,” a supply chain of equipment and software that pushes the limits of digital mass surveillance. quote:The new technologies give Russia’s security services a granular view of the internet. A tracking system from one Citadel subsidiary, MFI Soft, helps display information about telecom subscribers, along with statistical breakdowns of their internet traffic, on a specialized control panel for use by regional F.S.B. officers, according to one chart. quote:One feature of NetBeholder harnesses a technique known as deep-packet inspection, which is used by telecom service providers to analyze where their traffic is going. Akin to mapping the currents of water in a stream, the software cannot intercept the contents of messages but can identify what data is flowing where. I think state surveillance is something people have come to expect to some degree, but having surveillance technologies outsourced from 3rd party companies who can provide that service to everybody seems new to me. Perhaps I am just behind the times.
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Jul 3, 2023 21:51
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BillsPhoenix posted:I'm saying the result of this war very well could be Russia occupying and controlling Ukraine. Okay? That's not my problem. I'm perplexed by this debate. Why is it needed and what does it have to do with current events? You have only re-reg'd four days ago and you have only been making really weird posts that have nothing to do with the situation in Ukraine. It would be fair if you revealed what moniker we have previously known you by.
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Jul 3, 2023 21:52
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Rappaport posted:The funnier implication of that chain of reasoning is that Sweden should just annex Norway and Finland since Sweden has been an imperial power. Denmark seizes Scania, reimposes the Sound Tax
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Jul 3, 2023 21:55
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Deltasquid posted:IR fails to clear the very first hurdle of a legit theoretical framework by considering only states as relevant actors. Most IR scholars are actually dozens of Fareed Zakaria books stacked on top of each other wearing a trench coat.
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Jul 3, 2023 22:08
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Nenonen posted:It would be fair if you revealed what moniker we have previously known you by. In general I've liked the engagement here a lot more than reddit. I'm not going to doxx myself, and I thought that was against the rules to ask. I wish people on the internet weren't so creepy.
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Jul 3, 2023 22:17
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Nenonen posted:It would be fair if you revealed what moniker we have previously known you by. Please knock it off.
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Jul 3, 2023 22:27
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Deltasquid posted:IR fails to clear the very first hurdle of a legit theoretical framework by considering only states as relevant actors. Isn't that basically just a realist critique? It's been almost two decades since I really took a look at IR but weren't Social Constructivist IR scholars criticizing state centric theory since, well the 1990s? I mean Wendt published Anarchy is What States Make of It back in 1992 and he was hardly the first critic of realism.
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Jul 3, 2023 23:10
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fatherboxx posted:Please knock it off. Yeah, that post and all the rest of the last 5 pages.
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Jul 3, 2023 23:15
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I think we can all agree (except MikeC) that realism sucks balls and is stupid. Here's some content: Some things happening at the NL embassy in Moscow: https://twitter.com/GillesBP/status/1675551415572353024  "From 2014 to 2022 in the Donbass 11000 people died. Where were the Netherlands for 8 years while innocent children died" And also: https://twitter.com/Kysia/status/1675589130347003904?s=20  "The Netherlands is a country of lies" (both translations mine)
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Jul 3, 2023 23:15
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EU considers Russian bank concession to safeguard Black Sea grain dealquote:The EU is considering a proposal to allow a Russian bank under sanctions to carve-out a subsidiary that would reconnect to the global financial network, as a sop to Moscow wines at safeguarding the threatened Black Sea grain deal that allows Ukraine to export food to global markets. Only worthwhile news or commentary I seen today. Getting tough to follow the news cycle without a twitter account. 
RockWhisperer fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Jul 3, 2023 |
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Jul 3, 2023 23:46
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spankmeister posted:I think we can all agree (except MikeC) that realism sucks balls and is stupid. I'm very curious who would do this- I see little utility in what can't have been a very cheap stunt.
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Jul 4, 2023 00:31
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Discendo Vox posted:I'm very curious who would do this- I see little utility in what can't have been a very cheap stunt. A couple banner drops probably doesn't cost much, but my guess would be the FSB.
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Jul 4, 2023 00:42
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RockWhisperer posted:Only worthwhile news or commentary I seen today. Getting tough to follow the news cycle without a twitter account. Seems like at least Noel and the Kherson cat guy are more actively crossposting to Mastadon now.
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Jul 4, 2023 01:36
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spankmeister posted:I think we can all agree (except MikeC) that realism sucks balls and is stupid. Why are they accusing the Dutch, of all people, of remaining silent on ... something? Is this some kind of MH17 whataboutism? I.e. "why are you whining about 300 deaths when the Nazis in Kiev are murdering children for the crime of speaking Russian in Donbas!?" Moon Slayer fucked around with this message at 01:42 on Jul 4, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 01:40
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Moon Slayer posted:Is this some kind of MH17 whataboutism? I.e. "why are you whining about 300 deaths when the Nazis in Kiev are murdering children for the crime of speaking Russian in Donbas!?" That seems to be the play here. It's probably not a good way to win hearts and minds but I'm sure some edgelord Z-poster thought it was insightful
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Jul 4, 2023 01:48
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BillsPhoenix posted:I'm saying the result of this war very well could be Russia occupying and controlling Ukraine. No one was talking possible/impossible. The discussion was rational/irrational. You also brought this up in the context of people suggesting Russia's most likely best case scenario would have been a hell insurgency after annexation. Presumably to suggest something already clearly massively incorrect, that Ukrainians would have accepted an annexation because... recent history?? All of this is honestly inane due to y'know, the demonstrated reality of how the Ukrainians are full on fighting back as an organized state.
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Jul 4, 2023 01:49
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Someone could start an IR thread...
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Jul 4, 2023 02:00
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Moon Slayer posted:Why are they accusing the Dutch, of all people, of remaining silent on ... something? Is this some kind of MH17 whataboutism? I.e. "why are you whining about 300 deaths when the Nazis in Kiev are murdering children for the crime of speaking Russian in Donbas!?" The Dutch are heavy donators to Ukraine, and are considering giving them F16s.
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Jul 4, 2023 02:38
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Now that the derail is finally dead, thought I'd make another post about what's there on Russian TV when you're 'not following politics'. My previous post about this was back in October, but the info about main TV channels still applies if you need a refresher. Despite a lot happening since then, not a lot has actually changed. For that reason, instead of going through each channel, I'll try to describe some of the trends I saw and provide some examples. Just as last time, my observations are based on casual TV viewing of the main three channels on a weekend. What didn't change - Weekends are still relatively free from political talk shows - All channels have preserved their identity and intended audience, and for the most part kept their programming the same barring some seasonal changes - Talent shows and shows with nostalgic songs still dominate weekend programming, and they still seem to be unaffected by the war. The original Masked Singer is back even! Foreign songs and Pugacheva are still going strong somehow. - Ads for banks, fast food chains, consumer electronics stores, online stores, mobile operators, etc. are still pretty much the same. Occasional vague mentions of uncertain times, but that's about it. - There are still no new TV shows about the war, no special episodes of ongoing TV shows about the war, and in general it's seems to be only mentioned when it's the main focus (this mainly happens on some Jeremy Kyle/Jerry Springer-style talk shows that air on weekdays). Compared to COVID, there were comedy shows about working from home, dramas about frontline workers and medics, and occasional references to masks and vaccines in sitcoms and such in the first year of the pandemic. None of that with the war still. I know that some super patriotic directors complain that their trashy low budget movies about evil Ukrainian nazis are never shown on TV, too. When there are guests or contestants on talent shows from occupied/annexed territories, nobody has a sombre moment about it either. There were no PSAs about Putin bravely stopping Wagner backstabbers by doing nothing either, as that topic is relegated to political shows. Some changes - The snippets of news segments you get between ads have become way more unhinged. On Russia 1, for example, for Kisilev's end of the week show, they've been showing an uncensored video of a Ukrainian soldier blowing up on a mine and losing his legs. Caught me completely off-guard at 2 pm. loving atrocious. - Dick pills and magnetic dick healing devices are prominently advertised on every channel now. Apparently, Viagra is no longer available in Russia, so maybe this has something to do with that. Definitely a huge uptick in those. - There are now ads for joining the army. There are essentially two types: 'fight like your grandfathers fought against the nazis, be a real man' and 'you're going to get paid a lot, think about the mortgage'. I've even seen one sandwiched between two dick pill ads, but I don't know if they meant anything by it. - Foreign films are back on the menu! Well, not a lot, but last Saturday Channel One showed Three Billboards (probably had to censor some gay stuff, not sure) and next week it's The Grand Budapest Hotel (no gay stuff as is, thankfully, if I remember correctly). Channel One also started showing documentaries about classic Hollywood movies. On NTV, they are now showing a Turkish soap opera called The Kingfisher. There was a spike of interest in Turkish historical dramas around the time Game of Thrones was popular, but it's the first time a regular Turkish drama series like that airs on one of the main Russian TV channels, I believe. - Some problematic hosts were finally replaced. Most notably, the foreign agent and comedian Maxim Galkin had a nostalgia bait show on Channel One before the war. It went off air for some time, but ultimately came back and Galkin was replaced by the famous ballet dancer and passionate Putin supporter Nikolay Tsiskaridze. On Russia 1, after running out of pre-war shows, they found a replacement for Alexander Gurevich, the iconic host of the Russian version of Family Feud. Gurevich left the channel at the very start of the war, and made his position known by spamming youtube comments with the official channel account. He was replaced by the blandest and unfunniest host of roughly the same pudgy body type on Family Feud (which really pisses me off to no end), and by a different pudgy guy on one of the endless talent shows on the same channel. It's interesting that they still aired episodes with him for so long. - Channel One now has something called PodcastLab that they show early in the morning and late at night. Several hours a day, every day. Each 'podcast' is 35-40 minutes long, although the format of a lot of them seems to be closer to a regular lecture. Some are just people telling jokes. The topics are basically random, and so are the guests. What I saw of it was really bland and didn't mention the war. I've missed a couple that were about literature and cinema that the previews made look like they would be about the dangers of Western culture, but I'm too lazy to check if it was just one snappy soundbite in an hour of droning about the latest Russian blockbuster where actors had to actually go to space to film several minutes of footage. A weird attempt at getting the youth (i.e. 30-40 year-old) to watch bog-standard Soviet-style TV by calling it a podcast. - NTV shows about technology and consumer rights now have a weird climate change denialism bend to them. There were jabs at Europeans sorting rubbish into ten different bins before, but at least they were balanced with segments about how people in Russia try to be more eco-friendly and why it's actually a good thing and whatnot. Now it's all jokes about silly Westerners with their veganism when lab results show a frozen chicken nugget doesn't have enough meat, jokes about Greta Thunberg coming for your your old Soviet refrigerator, jokes about how if it gets a bit warmer there will be more sturgeon and caviar, and so on. Really trying to get one of those jokes in regardless of the topic. They also used to interview Western scientists, travel to EU and US to film robot weed whackers in action, and now, even compared to October last year, their pool seems to be limited to a handful of South American and Asian countries. They do talk about new scientific developments in 'unfriendly countries', so it's not them making a point, it's just new limitations they have to deal with, looks like. Conclusions If you're quick enough with the remote to avoid graphic gore videos on daytime TV, can disassociate the recruitment drive from the ongoing war, and your dick still works, the pretence of normalcy still mostly holds up.
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Jul 4, 2023 03:23
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Any Slonik?
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Jul 4, 2023 03:52
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This is going to sound like a strange question, but could you name some of the dick pill/magnet companies? I want to compare their messaging against Western dick pill/magnet companies.
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Jul 4, 2023 04:02
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Discendo Vox posted:This is going to sound like a strange question, but could you name some of the dick pill/magnet companies? I want to compare their messaging against Western dick pill/magnet companies. I remember dick pills called The Strength of the Emperor, but there were also a couple of other brands with names like Erectron or something. The ads are not as flashy as the American ones I'm familiar with, but the tropes are pretty much the same. An older guy rides a bike and hugs a younger woman, that sort of thing. The magnetic device is called Soyuz-Apollo. The first result when you Google it calls it a scam, lol. The ad starts with a kid playing with a toy spaceship, and then the toy is on his desk when he grows up to be a cool boss. The ad says the device was developed for astronauts returning from space. I think you're supposed to put your penis inside that tube. 
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Jul 4, 2023 04:19
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I am not sure that's not against Russia's anti-LGBT laws, considering Soyuz-Apollo used a version of the Androgynous Peripheral Attach System rather than a probe and drogue based one. OddObserver fucked around with this message at 04:28 on Jul 4, 2023 |
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Jul 4, 2023 04:25
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Paladinus posted:I remember dick pills called The Strength of the Emperor, but there were also a couple of other brands with names like Erectron or something. The ads are not as flashy as the American ones I'm familiar with, but the tropes are pretty much the same. An older guy rides a bike and hugs a younger woman, that sort of thing. Interesting, the devices appear to be mostly domestically produced and marketed (and my god, there's a lot of Russian "prostatitis" "medical devices" sold to either stick your dick in or stick up your rear end), but it appears likely that the dick pills are marketed directly from China, similar to the US. Now to burn my computer.
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Jul 4, 2023 04:32
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Discendo Vox posted:This is going to sound like a strange question, but could you name some of the dick pill/magnet companies? I want to compare their messaging against Western dick pill/magnet companies. "asking for a friend"
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Jul 4, 2023 05:05
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No no, I got to hear this Like you know how ultranationalist news and websites is eventually all scam health poo poo ads? That but on a national level
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Jul 4, 2023 05:19
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Discendo Vox posted:I'm very curious who would do this- I see little utility in what can't have been a very cheap stunt. my guess is that it's like in nazi germany, and if someone wants to get a promotion, he has to be a bigger nazi than his colleagues, and invent poo poo like this and it's not like dutch-russian relationships are going to get any better until putin's regime falls dutch haven't forgiven them for shooting down the plane, and have been giving more military aid to ukraine than many bigger countries
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Jul 4, 2023 06:43
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Imo Russia can't make new cruise missiles because all the chips ended up in magnetic dick sucking devices.
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Jul 4, 2023 06:45
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BillsPhoenix posted:Can I clarify Mearsheimer is just one branch of realism, and that while he's influential in us politics, he's not actually posting itt? I'm Otto Mearsheimer
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Jul 4, 2023 07:31
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My undergraduate degree is in International Relations and it's very funny because maybe a quarter if scholars are ferociously convinced that they have the One True Theory whereas the other three quarters are like "Here's what those other guys think, here's why they're wrong, no school of IR thought is particularly good at explaining everything." For myself I think constructivism comes closest to a coherent idea, because it is essentially "States act as people expect them to act", ie if everyone expects problems to be solved with negotiations and for trade to be productive and reasonably fair, that's what will happen. If everyone assumes everyone else is out for blood and you have to be an armed camp for survival, that's what will happen. But the obvious consequence is that this is more a foundational idea that is a philosophical basis for how and why you study actual events, not in itself an explanation of those events. It doesn't offer any predictive power - but then I don't think IR theories can predict well enough to account for the unexpected, which is when they would be really useful.
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Jul 4, 2023 08:02
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Paladinus posted:and next week it's The Grand Budapest Hotel (no gay stuff as is, thankfully, if I remember correctly) Probably would need to censor another thing there 
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Jul 4, 2023 08:22
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fatherboxx posted:Probably would need to censor another thing there That can't be by accident, can it?
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Jul 4, 2023 08:30
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mrfart posted:That can't be by accident, can it? Movie was filmed in 2013
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Jul 4, 2023 08:35
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Fascists tend to prefer sharp angles and straight lines, there's bound to be a lot of accidental overlap.
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Jul 4, 2023 08:36
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https://twitter.com/Jake_Hanrahan/status/1676144692210151426 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 4, 2023 09:43
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Failed Imagineer posted:Movie was filmed in 2013 Yes, I know that  love the movie. I mean, the fact that they’re playing it on Russian television. So somebody had the courage at the netwerk to program a movie that has fascists in it with a ZZ flag. Or they really didn’t notice?
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Jul 4, 2023 10:36
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mrfart posted:Yes, I know that I wouldn't discount the possibility that there is a cheeky producer of programming sneaking in a movie with demented and pathetic Adrian Brody running around with ZZ armband.
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Jul 4, 2023 10:55
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Aren't you an american, the country of nazi militias and donald trump? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 4, 2023 10:58
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mrfart posted:That can't be by accident, can it? I've actually checked what sort of foreign content Channel One have been airing since March. All this foreign stuff is always shown on Saturdays at midnight, and there are a lot of French movies, apparently. - 10 Days with Dad (a French family comedy about a dad struggling with going on holiday with children without their mum) - The Nest (a psychological drama with Jude Law about Americans going insane from moving to the UK?) - Perfumes (a French romcom about a successful woman who reluctantly falls in love with her driver) - Edmond (yet another French movie, it's about the creation of the play Cyrano de Bergerac) - Eiffel (a French documentary about Eiffel) - A documentary about Ennio Morricone (three times for some reason) - A documentary about Basic Instinct (twice, so I suspect they had to repeat these docs instead of some movies they couldn't license or censor in time) - Little Miss Sunshine (there's a prominent gay character, and overall the plot is not perfectly in line with Russian 'traditional values', I would say) - Three Billboards - The Grand Budapest Hotel And that's your lot. Doesn't really look to me like there's a pattern or someone is trying to show subversive movies on purpose. Also note that foreign content is still available through streaming, although platforms had to remove a lot of the more LGBT-friendly movies and shows after hefty fines, and they have trouble licensing newer content. Some TV channels like TV-3, STS, REN-TV and some other more entertainment-focused ones still can show two-three Hollywood movies a day on weekends. Mostly it's superhero and action guff, and also nothing more recent than 2021.
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Jul 4, 2023 11:11
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Ren-TV plays a Hollywood movie every evening, and there's always a couple more playing at the same time on other channels I don't bother remembering the names of.
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Jul 4, 2023 13:14
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