Anton Nossik

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Anton Borisovich Nossik (Russian: Анто́н Бори́сович Но́сик; 4 July 1966 – 9 July 2017) was a Russian journalist, social activist and blogger (10th place in RuNet according to Yandex.Blogs ranking[1]). Sometimes he is called one of the godfathers of the Russian Internet[2][3] or the first Russian-language blogger.[4] He was an editor for the Russian online news publications Vesti.ru, Lenta.ru,[5] Gazeta.ru and NEWSru.com.[6]

Anton Nossik
Антон Носик
Nossik in 2009
Born
Anton Borisovich Nosik

(1966-07-04)4 July 1966
Died9 July 2017(2017-07-09) (aged 51)
Pirogovo, Moscow Oblast, Russia
Other namesAnton Nosik
Occupation(s)manager, public figure, writer, blogger, columnist, editor, journalist
Brad Fitzpatrick, Anton Nossik, and Edward Shenderovich

Nossik was one of the former managers of Rambler and blogging service holding company SUP Media (participated in this capacity in the LiveJournal service acquisition), and was the founder of Pomogi.org charitable foundation.[7] Since mid-October 2009, he was appointed Deputy General Director of United Media and, concurrently, the position of chief editor Bfm.ru. From 16 November 2011 to 29 November 2012, he was the media director of SUP Media, which owns the LiveJournal service. In mid-2014, he co-founded Fuzzy cheese,[8] a market and public-opinion research company.[9]

Biography

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In 2011 Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met with representatives of the Russian internet community, including Anton Nossik.

Born to a Jewish family consisting of writer Boris Nossik and philologist of Polish Victoria Mochalova,[10] his father was elected as an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Arts in 2011. He had one sister, Sandra, who teaches sociolinguistics at the French University of Franche-Comté. The artist Ilya Kabakov was his stepfather.[9]

He graduated from medical school (Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry), but he was better known for his role in pioneering the beginning of Russian online news. Nossik moved to Israel in the early 90s and worked for some time at the Jerusalem Post, before returning to Russia in 1997.[11]

Activism

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Nossik was a member of the public council of the Russian Jewish Congress.[12] He was also a co-chair of the first roundtable on the introduction of Creative Commons licenses in the Russian Federation in 2008.[13][14] His photos are available under CC-BY-2.0 and CC-BY-3.0 licenses.[15]

In March 2013, Nossik took part in a series of pickets for the liberation of two members of Pussy Riot: Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova.[16] He was later involved in the Ukraine — Russia: Dialogue conference, which took place in Kyiv during 24–25 April 2014.[17]

Nosik was a strident critic of the Russian government's moves to crack down on internet freedoms in recent years with harsh legislative regulation. Speaking to AFP in 2014, he warned that "Russia's shift to the North Korean model of managing the internet will have far-reaching consequences for the country's economy and public sentiment."[18]

In 2014, Nossik posted an article in response to Vladimir Putin's crackdown on internet freedom called "Russia's First Blogger Reacts to Putin's Internet Crackdown": "In December 1999, three days before he became acting president of Russia, Vladimir Putin made a solemn pledge to honor and protect Internet freedom of speech and commerce, recognizing the importance of this new industry for Russia's modernization and general development. As a result, the Internet developed into Russia's only competitive industry. When Putin had made his initial pledge not to interfere, he lived up to his promise for almost 13 years. Unfortunately, those 13 happy years are over now and we're witnessing a fast and ruthless destruction of online freedom."[19] In the article, Nossik criticized Putin's flip-flopping stance and move to silence internet journalists. "This Orwellian masterpiece of legislation was signed into law by Vladimir Putin on May 5, 2014, and it will be enforced from August 1, 2014. Will that be the last day of Russian Internet? Maybe. Unless a new law kills it even faster," he wrote.[11]

Russian criminal investigation

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At the end of 2015, Nossik was under a criminal investigation under part 1 of article 282 the Russian Criminal Code (incitement of hatred or enmity) for a blog post about Syria. According to the prosecution, on 1 October 2015 Nossik published a post titled "Erase Syria from the face of the Earth",[20] in which, according to a linguistic expert solicited for the prosecution, "signs of inciting hatred against the Syrians, based on the national-territorial principle" were detected.[21] The post urged President Vladimir Putin to act as he perceived Syria as a military threat to Israel. Opposition figures in Russia pointed to the irony of Nossik being brought to trial as, at the time, Russia was being accused by the West of committing war crimes in Syria during their bombing raids against forces opposing President Bashar al-Assad.[22]

On 19 September 2016, the prosecution asked to sentence Nossik to two years imprisonment.[23] On 3 October 2016, the Presnya court of Moscow convicted Nossik and sentenced him to a fine of 500 thousand rubles.[24] On 15 December 2016, Moscow city court reduced the fine to 300 thousand rubles. In January 2017, an appeal to the conviction was accepted for hearing by the ECHR.[25]

Death

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Nossik died from a heart attack in the night of 9 July 2017 at the age of 51 in Pirogovo, Mytishchinsky District, Moscow Oblast, in the summer house of his friends.[26][27][28][29][30]

Since his death, Russian bloggers, journalists, and media personalities have shared their memories of Nossik, whom they remember as a dogged worker who built the RuNet from the ground up, helping turn it into, in his own words, Russia's only territory of unlimited free speech. Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte and Telegram, wrote in a post on VKontakte on Sunday that Nossik had, until his last days, stood in defense of the Internet and common sense in his precise and vivid posts on LiveJournal, where Nossik blogged.[31] Galina Timchenko, the executive editor of the news website Meduza and a former colleague of Nossik's, wrote: "For all of us at Meduza, Nossik was probably the single most important person on the Russian Internet; we consider him to be the founding father of Russian Internet journalism."[32]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Яндекс". Яндекс. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  2. ^ "Ukraine Alleges Moscow Behind Massive Cyberattack". Voanews.com. 28 June 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  3. ^ Отец Рунета Носик
  4. ^ "ANTON NOSSIK. Russia's First Blogger Reacts to Putin's Internet Crackdown". newrepublic.com.
  5. ^ "Антон Борисович Носик". Lenta.ru. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  6. ^ Интервью Антона Носика о свободе слова в интернете: «Я совершенно не оптимист».
  7. ^ "Благотворительный интернет-фонд Помоги.Орг". pomogi.org. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  8. ^ "Мохнатый сыр". fuzzycheese.ru. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  9. ^ a b "Что знает обо мне Государство". Echo.msk.ru. 15 January 1910. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  10. ^ "Виктория Мочалова: "Нельзя прекращать сбивать масло" — Booknik.ru". booknik.ru. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  11. ^ a b Micki Wagner (10 July 2017). "Anton Nossik: Russian Internet Pioneer Dies At 51". Inquisitr.com. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  12. ^ "Структура Российского еврейского конгресса". www.rjc.ru. Archived from the original on 15 May 2017. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  13. ^ says, Whiteman (3 September 2008). "First Roundtable Creative Commons Russia". Creativecommons.org. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  14. ^ "Его Превосходительство: dolboeb". Dolboeb.livejournal.com. 29 February 2008. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  15. ^ "Creator:Anton Nossik – Wikimedia Commons". Commons.wikimedia.org. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  16. ^ "В Москве завершилась серия пикетов в поддержку Pussy Riot". grani.ru. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  17. ^ "В Киеве открылся Конгресс "Россия – Украина: диалог". Фоторепортаж". Gordonua.com. 24 April 2014. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  18. ^ Solomon, Shoshanna. "Russian internet pioneer Anton Nosik dies at 51". The Times of Israel. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  19. ^ Nossik, Anton (15 May 2014). "Putin's Internet Crackdown: Russia's First Blogger Reacts". The New Republic. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  20. ^ Nossik, Anton (1 October 2015). "Стереть Сирию с лица Земли". Anton Nossik (blog). Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  21. ^ СКР завел уголовное дело на блогера Антона Носика, РБК, 16 February 2016.
  22. ^ "Russian-Israeli blogger fined for call to 'wipe Syria off the map'". The Times of Israel. AFP. 3 October 2016. Retrieved 10 July 2017.
  23. ^ "Прокурор попросил приговорить Носика к двум годам заключения". РИА Новости (in Russian). Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  24. ^ "Суд назначил блогеру Носику штраф 500 тысяч рублей за экстремизм". РИА Новости (in Russian). Retrieved 5 April 2017.
  25. ^ Vincent Kessler (29 March 2017). "European Court of Human Rights Begins Investigating Russia's 'Foreign Agent' Law". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  26. ^ "Умер Антон Носик" (in Russian). Gazeta.ru. 9 July 2017. Retrieved 9 July 2017.
  27. ^ "'Godfather' of Russian Internet Nossik Dies of Heart Attack". Themoscowtimes.com. 9 July 2017. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  28. ^ "Russian Internet Pioneer Nosik Dead Of Suspected Heart Attack At 51". Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. 9 July 2017. Retrieved 11 July 2017.
  29. ^ "Anton Nossik, 'godfather' of Russian internet, dies at 51". BBC News. 9 July 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  30. ^ "Anton Nosik, the father of Russian internet, dies aged 51 | News | DW | 09.07.2017". Dw.com. 28 February 2016. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  31. ^ "Saying Goodbye to Anton Nossik, Godfather of the Russian Internet · Global Voices". Globalvoices.org. 10 July 2017. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
  32. ^ "You found time for everything: A letter from Meduza's CEO to the late Anton Nossik — Meduza". Meduza.io. Retrieved 12 July 2017.
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