{"id":1290,"date":"2006-07-05T09:51:00","date_gmt":"2006-07-05T09:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2006\/07\/05\/115209043636658004\/"},"modified":"2006-11-27T18:34:37","modified_gmt":"2006-11-27T18:34:37","slug":"putin-astroturfing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2006\/07\/putin-astroturfing\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin: astroturfing"},"content":{"rendered":"<dl>As Russia&#8217;s lovely, cuddly Vladimir Putin <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/cms\/s\/046d7d3e-0b86-11db-b97f-0000779e2340.html\">throws his weight around on the international stage<\/a>, the BBC has been offering the chance to <a href=\"http:\/\/newsforums.bbc.co.uk\/nol\/thread.jspa?threadID=2368&#038;&#038;edition=1&#038;ttl=20060705095228\">pose questions for the corrupt, dictatorial ex-KGB nutter<\/a> via its Have Your Say Forums.It must be said, judging by the &#8220;readers recommended&#8221; comments the Russians have learned a fair amount about astroturfing &#8211; whole teams of agents desperately signing up with BBC accounts to ensure only the most banal questions reach the top. Only one question about Chechnya and nothing whatsoever about his <a href=\"http:\/\/europhobia.blogspot.com\/2004\/12\/russia-hint-of-ape-shit-mental.html\">merciless destruction of political opponents<\/a> &#8211; but plenty of moaning about visa requirements to visit Moscow to see the ballet&#8230; All the rest  (mostly soft balls about corruption and racism) seem designed for a Blair-like &#8220;Ah, I&#8217;m glad you asked that&#8221; policy announcement.<\/p>\n<\/dl>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As Russia&#8217;s lovely, cuddly Vladimir Putin throws his weight around on the international stage, the BBC has been offering the chance to pose questions for the corrupt, dictatorial ex-KGB nutter via its Have Your Say Forums.It must be said, judging &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2006\/07\/putin-astroturfing\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-former-ussr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1290\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}