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In the past, the first step in preparing a political event had been to send out a press release, which absolutely had to be sent by fax. If there was no release, your event would not be taken seriously. I hated faxes and had a well-founded suspicion that the only people using them were in Yabloko. as time passed, I came to know many journalists. They were young guys like me, and it was difficult to imagine them sitting all day by the fax machine waiting for treasured pieces of paper to crawl out of it. One day, I thought, 'Why don't I just use LiveJournal?' At that time it was the most popular platform for blogs, and that was where all the journalists clustered. I only needed to write, 'I'm organizing a demonstration, why not come and join us?' After the event I could write, 'Here are a couple of photos, if any one is interested.' Nowadays no one finds that original, but at the time it seemed almost revolutionary.
I enjoyed blogging, but had no idea it would become my principal occupation for years to come.
The Russian internet in those days was a delight. It still is. One of the reasons is that it didn't develop gradually, as it did in America, but simply appeared at a particular moment. It was fairly fast and accessible from the outset, and the number of users increased rapidly. All young, educated, enterprising people started learning how to use it. What was even more delightful was that the presidential administration did not take it seriously. They put their money into television and wrote off the internet, which saved it at the time. In China, the moment the internet appeared, the government started putting a firewall in place to keep it under control. Our government thought it was just an incomprehensible little backwater where freaks liked to hang out and saw no need to target it. no one in the Kremlin realized that the internet mirrored real life: you could post a message asking for leaflets to be distributed, and people would go to an actual street and actually hand them out. Rather than a backwater, it was infrastructure.
It took me time to discover how everything on it worked. What were people interested in? What were they not interested in? How could you get them involved? I soon realized that the first rule was to put in an appearance regularly. I wrote every day, sometimes several times. Later, I did the same with my YouTube channel. It was impossible to upload a new video every day, but I tried to put out two or three a week. My advice to all would-be bloggers is, if you want your blog to take off, post (or make videos) frequently. And then ask that your posts be shared. I ended every post I thought was important with that request. It was crucial. Interaction is also vital. Comment on your friends' posts. Join discussions. Show you are taking an interest in reactions, and always be ready to enter a dialogue.
I made up my mind that my blog on LiveJournal would be the largest uncensored news outlet in Russia. By 2012, my blog was one of the most widely read in the country. I always posted about things I found interesting and that I was most sure of. And one thing I really was sure of was that the Putin regime was founded on corruption.m mPerhaps that had to do with my being a lawyer.
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