December 6, 2007 By James Kimer

SUP’s Shenderovich Talks about LiveJournal Purchase

We were surprised to see a tremendous amount of interest in our recent post about the acquisition of LiveJournal, the most popular blogging platform in Russia, by a Kremlin loyalist. While we focused on the privacy and censorship concerns posed by a government that is increasingly hostile toward free speech, most other outlets seem dramatically less concerned over these issues. Take for example the new CMSWire interview with Edward Shenderovich of SUP. The reporter asks only a few softball questions, and doesn’t really get into any specifics of what SUP would do if the security services asked for personal information about certain bloggers. Mr. Shenderovich expresses his confusion and surprise at “where these concerns are coming from” – which seems unusual given what that the new owners of the platform are closely aligned with an authoritarian government and an established pattern of censorship. Surely it is easy for SUP to at least understand why people are concerned, and let us know how they plan to vigorously protect privacy and freedom of expression? Cuts from the interview after the jump.