It seems like intellectual independence and freedom of speech so passionately promised by the ruling Party of Regions has finally blossomed online, though perhaps not in the way they hoped for.
As Ukrainian publications protest the libel law,
adopted in the first reading, with blank front pages and black
banners on their websites, programers have found their own way to
give lawmakers a piece of their mind. Several unnamed developers
recently launched a website called “Who is in the (Verkhovna)
Rada?,” where anybody can upload info about the current lawmakers.
The website www.htovradi.info
contains personal pages of all the lawmakers and candidates and is
supposed to work on the same principle as WikiLeaks or Wikipedia.
This means literally anyone can add information they find essential
or just want everybody to know.
A dramatic video informing about the website
was uploaded on Sept. 17, featuring a person in the Guy Fawkes mask
associated with international hacker group Anonymous. Despite an
extensive social media campaign to spread the message and the
spamming of journalists with emails, the video
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNuqFOokC7g&feature=plcp
) has only several dozen views.
Most of the deputies’ pages are still empty, but
some are being intensively filled up by unknown authors. Lawmakers
Tetyana Bahteeva and Stanislav Berezkin from the Party of Regions
already have up to a dozen pages full of links to different articles
about them, all of them authored by the same Abram Evbrazov.
Personal pages contain not only political achievements, but also
data on the lawmaker’s family status, religion, education, real
estate, hobbies, sexual orientation and even favorite pets.
Users are also uploading videos and photos,
posting live comments and voting. This open format reflects the
interest a given politician generates within the online community,
or at least how unpopular he or she is. Indeed, most comments remain
negative as people use the site to vent their frustrations.
A group of online activists claiming to be part
of the international group Anonymous has already called the site a
Ukrainian WikiLeaks. It still has a long way to go to live up to the
name, though the idea of greater transparency and open debate about
the country’s future parliamentarians will certainly find many
supporters.
Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko
can be reached at [email protected]
