Next time you go to Russia, you may want to take it easy on the Twittering front. According to
this article (in Russian), a senior spokesman for the Moscow police admitted in a recent interview that the police are avid readers of "the Internet" and particularly of Twitter. What a telling quote this is:
"Citizen journalista are twitterting from all the latest rallies and gatherings. The folks we detained during the rallies on Oct 31 were twittering even from the buses and the police stations - what was happening, who was saying what, etc. We are constantantly on the look-out for what they are saying, what they are playing. We are reacting immediately - including on issues that deal with human rights".
The spokesman added that they are also looking for ways to "raise the profile" of the police in the blogosphere. To that end, they are considering organizing debates and roundtables with bloggers; this seems to be the new preferred way of co-opting dissenting bloggers.
The police may really need it after a recent viral video confession recorded by a disgruntled Russian policeman - where he accused his bosses of being corrupt - got him fired, triggering lots of discussions on the Russian Internet (see
this BBC article, for example).
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