Have you ever thought about websites that are in different languages and how they have different cultures and norms compared to the English websites?
Since English is the most popular language on the Internet we are constantly bombarded by corporate advertising, search engine manipulation, through copy right take downs, and other practices that reduce our freedom to regulate what content we see.
Now take for example the Russian Internet and the forces that drive Internet websites in the country. Since Russia is a poor country and the inhabitants are not drawn into consumerism as they are in the U.S advertising is not as prevalent. You end up with less money being pushed through advertising unlike in the U.S. Copy right holders care less about Russian websites as they are not the main source of income.
websites such as youtube cannot exist in Russia due to the low advertising income and lack of corporate investment making it impossible to sustain.
Since we established that the people of Russia are poor: The children in those countries tend to play video games that are low resolution, f2p mmo rpgs and other time wasters.
From my understanding, a lot of Russians still play warcraft 3 and dota all day.
Private servers for games such as WoW are left alone as its difficult to prosecute copy right infringement in Russia.
Hacking sites are left alone in Russia, allowing for hacking groups to spread, compare this to the U.S hacking community where a game hacking website(Cheat engine) was taken down for hosting hacks for offline video games.
Torrent sites are also left alone.
Since the Russians are used to being under communism they expect political speech to be silenced.
Due to this Russians are more likely to use VPN services unlike their U.S counter parts.
Russians are much more paranoid about spying from the government but they are also more accepting of it.
The politicians in Russia regularly silence political speech on the IntPost too long. Click here to view the full text.