Is Crimea In Russia? Internet Companies Have Different Answers 304
judgecorp (778838) writes "Three weeks after Russia asserted that Crimea is part of its territory, the social networks have a problem: how to categories their users from the region? Facebook and the largest Russian social network, Vkontakte, still say Crimeans are located in Ukraine, while other Russian social networks say they are Russians. Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, an edit war has resulted in Crimea being part of Russia, but shaded a different colour to signify the territory is disputed. Search engine Yandex is trying to cover both angles: its maps service gives a different answer, depending on which location you send your query from."
is this seriously (Score:3, Insightful)
Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:4, Insightful)
Russia annexed the province by use of force. Any and all counter-arguments like "but they voted" are meaningless: first, the voting took place under the "gentle" guidance of Russian military. Then, even if you think, it is legitimate for a referendum on whether to join a foreign power to take place while under occupation by that same power, the vote was fraudulent. For example, in Sevastopol the number of people showing up for vote was 123% of the eligible voters. [thegatewaypundit.com]
And, finally, even without the above two arguments, would Russia accept a referendum by residents of the Kuril Island [wikipedia.org], for example, on breaking away from the Motherland and joining Japan? Would the US accept the results of Southern California (or Southern Texas) voting to break away and join Mexico?
Neither would, of course. The Crimean referendum is a joke. A sad joke perpetrated by Russia-the-bully on Ukraine weakened by internal strife and years of mismanagement (to which Russia heartily contributed just for this purpose, BTW).
Re:is this seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
Only the Russian websites will do so. The rest will list it as "Ukrainian territory under Russian occupation". Unwieldy, perhaps, but reflecting the truth.
Or, as they keep saying about Jerusalem, it will go something like this: "Annexed by Russia in a move not recognized internationally."
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia handled this badly in a lot of ways. But in the end what we know is that once Russia offered, if there were a fair and free referendum the Crimean people would like to join Russia and leave Ukraine. I see no reason that people should be trapped in a country they don't want to be a part of. I believe self determination gives people, not just states, the right to change borders.
And yes I think if Texas voted to join Mexico the USA would accept it. I can't imagine the USA holding millions of people and hundreds of square miles of territory by force. That would completely undermine everything else about American democracy. Americans like to have a government by the people for the people. A government imposed is not either.
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:5, Insightful)
You apparently never heard of the American Civil War then.
Re:This (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is rather like claiming the residents of South Tyrol are Austrian, and perhaps more apropos to the Crimean situation, stating Austria is German.
How precisely Russia threatening to swallow up any of its neighbors' territory because ethnic Russians live there differs from Anschluss escapes.me.
Re:"use of force" (Score:4, Insightful)
Kosovo was torn away from Serbia to become independent — not to be annexed by one of the powers doing the tearing away. That's the major difference.
NATO intervened in Yugoslavia after the Belgrade regime committed serious crimes against humanity — and only after the UN-forces demonstrably failed [wikipedia.org] to end the abuses. Now Russian propaganda keeps repeating the same accusations against Ukraine's current government — except Russia is obviously lying.
But, no doubt, Putin will thank you for this rhetorical cover. He needs every sympathizer (or even a neutral) in the West he get...
Re:is this seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
The current government there is a party that got less than 10% of the vote in the last Crimean regional election, and was essentially appointed by Putin after his troops moved in. So it owes its entire political existence not to local support, but to the support of some guys in Moscow.
Its possible that if you had a completely free plebiscite on the issue, without Russian troops and "militias" backed by them standing around with guns, the people of Crimea would have willingly voted for something similar to what they have now. Its also possible they wouldn't. We'll never know now, because it doesn't look like there will be anything like a free election there again for quite a while.
Re:Ukraine's borders were changed by use of force (Score:5, Insightful)
It was a war over Federal vs. State control
Yeah, control of slavery.
Re:is this seriously (Score:4, Insightful)
How high are we talking here? They voted with participation of over 85%, and of that vote, overwhelming majority agreed to annexation.
To compare, average Western country has election for government with voter activity barely around 50% (often much lower) and ruling parties are often elected with very small minorities of under 20% of those who came to vote.
So your requirement is largely met, unless you're planning on insisting on 100% kind of numbers.
Notably: OECD received invitation to the elections to monitor them. They came under massive pressure from EU and US and ended up declining the invitation.