71million users, spoke before the Duma deputies. Topics in her videos are not related
to politics, she mainly talks about cosmetics, entertainment and shopping. During
the parliamentary hearings “On Youth Policy in the Russian Federation”, Alexandra
Balkovskaya (Sasha Spielberg’s real name) gave some tips on how to communicate
with young people.
“I’m not good at naming political parties, but I’m well versed in communicating
with a large audience. The fact that I am here is a sign that the state recognises the
importance of the video blogosphere and the importance of opinion leaders,” she
said in her speech. Spielberg, however, did not miss a chance to comment on all
the events that were being discussed by the online community. “As for using video
bloggers for the fight with street demonstrations, I am not a supporter of extremes,”
she said, as reported by Kommersant. “But it’s my attitude that we should have
access to both social networks and a passport at age 16, as well as to rally against
someone for wearing yellow sneakers,” Spielberg added.
This quote refers to two separate events. The first is about a proposed bill by
United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov, which would prohibit children under the age
of 14 from using social media and to demand that
everyone register with their real name, based on pass-
port data. In other words, the proposal calls for an end
to anonymous users. Yellow sneakers are an allusion
to He is not Dimon to you, which opens with an e-mail
of Medvedev’s order on Amazon for yellow sneakers.
“I’ve never seen a more impudent substitution of
concepts in my life! So, according to people who wrote
this speech, on March 26th, thousands of people went
out to the streets in different cities because they did
not like yellow sneakers,” said another popular Rus-
sian video blogger, Nikolai Sobolev, after commenting
on Spielberg’s speech. “The speech by Sasha Spielberg in the State Duma is a new
example of unsuccessful attempts of the state to enlist the support of the YouTube
generation”, the German edition of Süddeutsche Zeitung concluded. Yet, as Henry
Ford said: “Failure is simply an opportunity to begin again, this time more intel-
ligently.” So, attempts to co-operate with online opinion leaders continue.
Blogger festivalThe next step did not take long. The authorities moved beyond engagement
with just one blogger, and invited a whole council of them to the State Duma. In
A bill proposed in
the Russian Duma
would demand
that everyone
using social
media in Russia
register with
their real name.The Kremlin sets its eyes on YouTube, Svitlana Ovcharova Opinion & Analysis