I went into the email folder where all the newsletters go and found notifications from Facebook and Instagram saying that Roskomnadzor (Russia’s federal media and internet regulator) had requested data from them about visits to my page.
And somewhere out there sits some stuffed shirt in a tie. Calls himself a “civil servant.” Collects taxpayer money, perks, extended vacation time, and hopes for a fat state pension. The stuffed shirt probably loves saying things like “I serve the state” and “it pains me to see what’s happening to Russia.” And this stuffed shirt’s job is to send requests to Facebook and Instagram: hand over the traffic data for Navalny’s resources.
Meanwhile, subscriber counts are completely public:
And as for traffic data, the stuffed shirt already knows perfectly well that no one will answer. So in advance he writes an official memo to another stuffed shirt in a tie—one higher up—with the subject line: “On yet another refusal by Instagram and Facebook to provide data.”
The stuffed-shirt memos will be brought to a third stuffed shirt, who will tuck them into a little folder and go report to some idler and thief in the Presidential Administration, where he will announce—waving the folder around—that despite all their enormous efforts, those malicious foreigners still refuse to hand over the data. After that, the two of them will draft talking points for a press release about threats to the country’s information security.
And this is what they call public service. And for this, we’re also supposed to hand over another half a billion rubles (about 500 million rubles) to buy apartments for these layabouts and louts:
Apartments? For what exactly?
After the Forces of Good win, please remind me that every Roskomnadzor employee should be fired and made to sweep the streets until they’ve worked off all the salaries they’ve been paid over the years. And all the apartments should be taken away. ~~And divided up.~~