title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: In 2017, Gyllenhaal starred as astronaut David Jordan in the science fiction horror film "Life"; "Slant Magazine"s Eric Henderson stated that Gyllenhaal was "dead behind the eyes from his first scene". He also had a supporting role in the action-adventure film "Okja" and starred in the drama "Stronger", based on Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman. In his review of the latter, "The Independent"s Geoffrey Macnab complimented Gyllenhaal's versatility and "outstanding" portrayal of Bauman. The following year, he co-starred in the drama "Wildlife" opposite Carey Mulligan, in which he plays a father who temporarily abandons his family to take a dangerous job. It is based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Richard Ford. Ella Kemp, writing for "Sight & Sound" magazine, praised the chemistry of the lead actors which "fizzes with an effortless dynamism". He also had a role in the western drama "The Sisters Brothers" (2018).


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal reunited with "Nightcrawler" director Dan Gilroy in the thriller film "Velvet Buzzsaw", in which he plays art critic Mort Vandewalt. The film premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was distributed by Netflix. "Variety"s Peter Debrudge opined that Gyllenhaal was "relishing another of those cartoonishly camp performances". That same year, Gyllenhaal played comic book villain Mysterio / Quentin Beck in the superhero film "", a sequel to "", set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was one of the highest-grossing films of the year. He appeared alongside Tom Sturridge in "Sea Wall/A Life", a double bill of monologues by Nick Payne and Simon Stephens, at the Hudson Theatre on Broadway, which opened on August 8, 2019. He garnered a Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play for his performance. Gyllenhaal also lent his voice for the animation "Spirit Untamed" (2021). That same year, he played detective Joe Baylor in the crime thriller "The Guilty", a remake of the Danish film of the same name.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: In 2022, he starred as a criminal in Michael Bay's action thriller "Ambulance;" the film received a "mixed-to-positive" response. Gyllenhaal also voiced a farmer in the Disney animation "Strange World", which was released in November 2022. He will also appear in Guy Ritchie's "The Interpreter". He is attached to portray film producer Robert Evans in "Francis and the Godfather", a film that chronicles the creation of 1972's "The Godfather", and military airman John A. Chapman in the film "Combat Control". Gyllenhaal is slated to executive produce and star in "The Son", a television miniseries based on Jo Nesbø's novel of the same name. He is attached to produce and star in the heist thriller "Cut and Run," and a film adaptation of the musical "Fun Home". He is slated to appear in "Prophet", a Sam Hargrave-directed film based on the Image Comics character.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: On August 3, 2022, it was announced that Gyllenhaal will star in a remake of "Road House" as a former UFC fighter-turned-bouncer. He will star alongside UFC champion Conor McGregor, and the film will be released on Amazon Prime.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal was named one of "People" magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2006. He was also listed in "People's" "Hottest Bachelors of 2006". In April 2012, "Shalom Life" ranked him number six on its list of "the 50 most talented, intelligent, funny, and gorgeous Jewish men in the world". He was ranked number 35 in "Empire" magazine's poll of The 100 Sexiest Movie Stars in 2013. In another poll conducted by "Glamour" magazine, Gyllenhaal was selected as one of the Sexiest Men of The Year 2018.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal's sister, actress Maggie, is married to actor Peter Sarsgaard, Gyllenhaal's co-star in "Jarhead" and "Rendition". His niece, Ramona Sarsgaard, was born in October 2006.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: In December 2006, Gyllenhaal and his sister escaped a fire that destroyed Manka's Inverness Lodge, a famed lodge and restaurant in Inverness, California, at which they were vacationing. The Gyllenhaals were among a dozen or so guests who fled after the fire, sparked by a falling tree, broke out at about 3 a.m. Co-owner and celebrity chef Daniel DeLong said the pair were supportive despite having to brave the wind and cold. "Jake was helping me pull things out of the fire" DeLong said.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal has both godparents and what he describes as "celebrity godparents". Actor and director Paul Newman was his godfather, and actress Jamie Lee Curtis is his godmother. Other godparents of unknown status include a gay couple and cinematographer Robert Elswit. Gyllenhaal is the godfather of Matilda Rose Ledger (born October 28, 2005), daughter of his "Brokeback Mountain" co-stars Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal began dating actress Kirsten Dunst in 2002 after his sister Maggie, who starred with Dunst in "Mona Lisa Smile", introduced them; they eventually broke up in 2004 on friendly terms. He dated his "Rendition" co-star Reese Witherspoon from 2007 until 2009. He dated singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from October 2010 to January 2011, and model Alyssa Miller from July to December 2013.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal once filmed a commercial for Rock the Vote and, along with his sister, visited the University of Southern California to urge students to vote in the 2004 presidential election. He also campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. He has said, however, that "it frustrates me when actors talk politics; I'm political and I make choices in my movies that I think are political. I try and say things with what I do. Rightly or wrongly, young actors have all the power." In an interview, he remarked that "it's a sad time when actors are politicians and politicians are actors". In the 2018 midterm elections, Gyllenhaal endorsed Beto O'Rourke. His endorsement came in the form of a Facebook post that included a picture of him in a "BETO" shirt and lengthy caption that also endorsed Stacey Abrams, Andrew Gillum, Kyrsten Sinema, and Jacky Rosen in their respective Senate or gubernatorial elections.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal recycles regularly, and said in an interview that he spends $400 a year to have trees planted in a Mozambique forest, partly to promote the Future Forests program. After filming "The Day After Tomorrow", he flew to the Arctic to promote awareness of climate change. He has described climate activist Greta Thunberg as an inspiring figure.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: In 2003, Gyllenhaal participated in an advertising campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union. Gyllenhaal is the Honorary Chair of the New Eyes for the Needy Advisory Board, and has signed on to help the TV fundraiser Stand Up to Cancer. Gyllenhaal is on the board of directors for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition and volunteered in California juvenile detention centers with Scott Budnick. In 2014, Gyllenhaal attended an event that benefited the Headstrong Project, an organization that provides treatment to military veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, during which he read a poem by a veteran, and in 2017 he participated in a fundraiser to help survivors who lost limbs during the September 11 attacks in 2001.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal has studied Buddhism, and has said, "I am not a card-carrying Buddhist, but I do try to practice mindfulness" and that it is his goal to meditate every day.


title: Jake Gyllenhaal

text: Gyllenhaal's most acclaimed films, according to the review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, include "October Sky" (1999), "Donnie Darko" (2001), "Lovely & Amazing" (2002), "Brokeback Mountain" (2005), "Zodiac" (2007), "Source Code" (2011), "End of Watch" (2012), "Nightcrawler" (2014), and "Stronger" (2017). He has been nominated for an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, three British Academy Film Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.


title: XHamster

text: xHamster is a Cypriot pornographic media and social networking site headquartered in Limassol, Cyprus. xHamster serves user-submitted pornographic videos, webcam models, pornographic photographs, and erotic literature and incorporates social networking features. xHamster was founded in 2007. With more than 10 million members, it is the fourth-most popular pornography website on the Internet after XVideos, XNXX and Pornhub. As of July 2020, xHamster was the 20th-most trafficked website in the world.


title: XHamster

text: The site produced "The Sex Factor", a reality TV series in which contestants compete to become porn stars. The site has been targeted as part of malvertising campaigns, and some governments have blocked xHamster as part of larger initiatives against Internet pornography.


title: XHamster

text: In early 2007, Russians Oleg Netepenko and Dmitri Gussew, who publicly appears under the name Alex Hawkins decided to create a new adult video service, and xHamster was launched on 2 April 2007. xHamster was envisioned as a social network; a spokesperson said the site's content organization scheme was intended to allow "people who wanted to chat, exchange erotic pics and share amateur videos ... to find mutual friends online and maybe discover partners interested in intimate relationships". Surpassing 10 million members in 2015, xHamster became the third most popular pornography Internet website, after XVideos and Pornhub. In May 2016, xHamster launched "The Sex Factor", a reality series competition where contestants compete to become a porn star.


title: XHamster

text: xHamster has restricted access to its site and removed content in response to political issues concerning the LGBT community and rape culture. The site blocked users with IP addresses based in North Carolina during April 2016, after the state enacted a law that stopped its counties and cities from passing laws to protect LGBT people. In response to the verdict of the "People v. Turner" sexual assault case, xHamster instituted a "Brock Turner rule", which banned videos involving rape, including those involving sex with an unconscious partner or hypnosis. In the aftermath of the 2016 Democratic National Committee email leak, xHamster offered Debbie Wasserman Schultz a US$50,000 role in a pornographic film with a Bernie Sanders lookalike.


title: XHamster

text: During the total solar eclipse of 21 August 2017, xHamster reported a significant decrease in site usage across the United States. Cities in range of totality such as Nashville, Tennessee, had a viewership drop of 43%. Charleston, South Carolina, and Portland, Oregon, saw drops of 36% and 35% respectively, jumping back up to an 85% increase in Charleston and 63% in Portland after the eclipse. Cities outside the path of totality experienced a less drastic change, with cities such as New York and Los Angeles experiencing 15% less viewership.


title: XHamster

text: In August 2017 xHamster sent a letter to the creators of the television series "Sense8", Lilly and Lana Wachowski, requesting to host the third season of "Sense8". "Sense8" was originally broadcast by Netflix which chose not to renew the season. Lana Wachowski stated that content for a third season was being created hoping that someone would pick the series up. In the letter to the Wachowskis, Alex Hawkins stated, "xHamster has a long history of fighting for the rights of sexual speech and non-normative sexuality. In addition to allowing billions of users to connect with individual articulations of gender and sexuality, we continue to use our audience to speak up against repressive anti-LGBTQ laws in the US and abroad, and for sex-ed in public schools Planned Parenthood and the rights of sex workers".


title: XHamster

text: Stormy Daniels was the most searched porn star on xHamster in the first quarter of 2018. Traffic on xHamster.com increased by 5% across the US and by 7% in Washington D.C. during her 60-minute interview with Anderson Cooper leading vice president Hawkins to the conclusion that the company had, "rarely seen anything like this" before.


title: XHamster

text: In May 2018, "La Manada" (wolfpack) was one of the most searched for words on xHamster. That the term is linked to the Spanish sexual abuse case, La Manada, led xHamster to confirm that a video showing the alleged crimes of five accused men was never published on its website.


title: XHamster

text: In August 2018, xHamster launched a $25,000 xHamster for Women Fund to expand the content in the "Porn for Women" category of the site. According to xHamster Vice President Alex Hawkins, the goal of the fund is to increase the availability of porn that women viewers want to watch as well as to address the discrepancy between the site's visitors, 25% of whom identify as women, and the 95% of site content aimed at a male audience. Submissions were judged by "a rotating team of women-identified judges, made up of fans, porn stars, journalists and xHamster employees". Starting 1 September, amateur and professional women-identifying filmmakers could apply for grants in the range of $500 to $10,000. The films will be made available for free and without interest claims from xHamster. While other major porn sites have sought in recent years to appeal to women viewers, xHamster appears to be the first major porn site to offer a monetary incentive for this.


title: XHamster

text: In September 2018, the website released an interactive online guide map, titled "Legendary Porn Theaters of NYC", marking the most famous porn locations in 1970s New York City. Many of the sites were shut down by the city in the 1980s and included theaters that screened pornos, massage parlors, and adult bookstores.


title: XHamster

text: One year after the 2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, xHamster released data showing that traffic to the site from Puerto Rico was down by one-fifth compared to pre-hurricane levels. Vice President Alex Hawkins claimed the lag in viewership indicated that the country, in contrast to some claims made by officials, had not yet returned to pre-hurricane standards of normalcy, including both reliable access to electricity and privacy.


title: XHamster

text: Connected with right-wing YouTubers, Reddit groups, memes on 4chan and pseudoscientific health benefits of abstaining from porn and masturbation, #NoNutNovember (or #NNN) is a viral abstinence "campaign" or monthlong "challenge" begun in 2017. While xHamster did report a slight dip in user traffic from late October to early November 2017, they also reported a slight increase in site traffic in November 2019; Alex Hawkins attributed the increase to heightened public awareness of masturbation throughout the month of November. In 2018 xHamster launched a counter No Nut November campaign called "Nut November", which they promoted with the hashtag #yesfap. On 6 November the site posted to its Twitter account that they began to receive hateful messages and well-designed death threats in response to its counter-campaign, including an image reading "Pornographers must die".


title: XHamster

text: In a "photobomb" stunt at the 2019 Golden Globes, Kelleth Cuthbert, a model and brand ambassador for Fiji Water, went viral on Twitter by repeatedly appearing behind actors on the red carpet. Cuthbert was seen carrying a tray of Fiji water bottles behind actors such as Jim Carrey and Jamie Lee Curtis. On Twitter, xHamster offered the Fiji brand ambassador, Cuthbert, a contract proposal of $100,000 to "keep our performers fully hydrated".


title: XHamster

text: In support of US civil servants during the 2019 government shutdown, the site offered all furloughed government employees access to all premium pornographic content.


title: XHamster

text: xHamster provides various pornographic videos, photos and erotic stories grouped under categories catering to specific fetishes or sexual preferences. Users uploading content select from a series of set categories. The most popular category, "amateur", tags 30% of all videos posted. In the US, popular gay uploads include "big cocks" and "bare back" with Oregon having the lowest gay porn view time at 1.5 hours a week while West Virginia has the highest view rate at 3.3 hours a week. In 2017, xHamster found that 20 per cent of its viewers were watching porn with a partner. The proportion of female users amounts to 26% with increasing tendency. In 2017, the website stated a 2.4% increase in women visitors with the most popular search term in the U.S. being "Daddy" and "Mom" worldwide. On the occasion of Valentine's Day, xHamster collected data of female search preferences sorted by US states. In 17 out of 50 states, female-only porn was found to be the most sought after category. In addition to prerecorded videos, users can view live streams of paid models; the model can interact with several users by means of an online chat service. Models can also activate a "Tip" button, which allows users to provide the models additional money. In 2017, xHamster along with other leading adult sites, began accepting Bitcoin as payment. The platform added a "Night Mode" which switches the site to a low-light background when activated. Since 2017, xHamster uses an artificial intelligence model that scans material on its website to target individual user preferences. In reaction to growing demand for tech related content, xHamster created a virtual reality platform to explore opportunities for VR techniques in the porn industry. In August 2018, the website was listed as number seven on the Daily Dot's list of top ten free porn sites on the internet.


title: XHamster

text: xHamster also contains several social networking features. Users have detailed profiles incorporating their profile picture and gender, as well as works added to the site. Content possesses a commenting and rating system, and users can interact by adding others as a "friend" or subscribing to another's content. Privacy settings allow users to make various parts of the account visible only to select individuals, filter private messages, and block certain requests. Users can also verify their identity by submitting a photo of themselves with their username, which confers a stamp upon their profile.


title: XHamster

text: Unlike mainstream social media such as Facebook and YouTube, pornographic sites face a host of additional legal regulations and persistent social stigma. A OneZero article published by Medium details many legal and cultural discrepancies between LA's Silicon Valley and "Porn Valley", noting xHamster's "aggressive content moderation" with regard to video uploads to the site. xHamster's video upload process entails A.I. content review, regular staff examination, and "a legion of volunteers […] who review uploads in exchange for in-site rewards, as well as the health of the community", said Alex Hawkins to OneZero in November 2019 (Medium). xHamster user chats "are also periodically monitored to ensure that they're in compliance with the site's policies".


title: XHamster

text: In August 2020 xHamster came under criticism for the deepfake pornography videos the site hosts. When asked about xHamster's policy on deepfake videos, Vice President Hawkins reported that while the company lacks a specific policy regarding deepfakes, it would remove such videos when it became aware of them, as they are a violation of the site's terms of use.


title: XHamster

text: In January 2017, xHamster became one of the first major adult sites to incorporate HTTPS encryption. HTTPS allows for privacy, malware protection, and integrity of information exchange. Alex Hawkins said that one of the reason for HTTPS was because xHamster receives millions of visitors from countries where pornography is illegal.


title: XHamster

text: In April 2013, Conrad Longmore, a cyber security researcher, found that xHamster and PornHub were attacked with malvertisements.


title: XHamster

text: In September 2015, xHamster was hit with another malvertising attack along with YouPorn and PornHub. TrafficHaus reported that it might be the result of a breach. On 28 November 2016 it was revealed the usernames, email addresses and passwords of 380,000 users were stolen.


title: XHamster

text: In an effort to maintain user anonymity, xHamster stated in a Men's Health interview that they limit third-party access to user information when sending viewer data to marketing and analytics groups. While these security measures do not necessarily eliminate the possibility of linking a "browser fingerprint" and IP address to a user's personal identity, xHamster claims that it does not actively identify individuals unless one decides to "opt in to providing more personal, identifiable info".


title: XHamster

text: In response to lawmakers in the US state of Utah rejecting a sexual education bill in February 2017, xHamster started presenting a popup to visitors from Utah, offering them to view xHamster's sexual education series "The Box". The rejected House Bill 215 would have allowed parents to opt their children in for more comprehensive sexual education than the abstinence-only sex education common in Utah, but was opposed for encouraging sexual behaviour and allowing children to be taught how to have sex. The bill's sponsor criticized the trend of leaving sexual education to pornographic websites such as xHamster and Pornhub.


title: XHamster

text: In April 2017 in response to US President Donald Trump's decision to allow states to deny federal money to Planned Parenthood, xHamster stated that they would be posting to their site information on Planned Parenthood with a popup encouraging donations to the organization. The post states, "Porn stars and amateurs alike depend on increased reproductive rights, access to birth control and low-cost STI screenings, and non-judgmental sexual health education".


title: XHamster

text: In November 2016, the company released its own beer, xHamster beer. The beer is an 8.5% ABV Belgian Triple-style ale. Costing €3.90 for 0.55 litres it sold out within five days.


title: XHamster

text: In May 2017, xHamster partnered with Dutch Inventor Moos Neimeijer to create Minimeyes. A motion sensor Bluetooth device that uses infrared to monitor the room and signals the computer to shut all windows and sound when an intrusion is detected.


title: XHamster

text: In June 2017 xHamster released a sex doll named xHamsterina in collaboration with the manufacturer iDoll.


title: XHamster

text: Since October 2017, xHamster launches a product campaign that addresses "owners of apocalypse bunkers". Against receipt, owners receive some of the company's products and videos for free.


title: XHamster

text: xHamster has been blocked by various governments. In August 2015, the government of India ordered Internet service providers to block several sites, including xHamster, under the IT Act. In Russia, a local court in the Republic of Tatarstan ruled in favour of a block on xHamster and other pornographic websites in April 2014; the ruling was passed on a year later to Roskomnadzor, the state media overseer.


title: XHamster

text: Legislation to restrict pornographic sites includes efforts targeted at reducing human trafficking which may mandate electronic manufactures to install content filters to restrict "obscene" material. Nevertheless, organizations in support of free speech have been speaking out against the efforts to include porn sites such as xHamster which noted 125 million clicks from Thailand and 95 million clicks from users in Turkey in which the site is banned.


title: XHamster

text: Other attempts at censoring have their basis in violating net neutrality, whereby governments may restrict bandwidth to various Internet categories. xHamster's Alex Hawkins stated, "As an international company, we see every day how restrictive governments use regulatory tools, like traffic throttling, to limit access to not only porn but political speech".


title: XHamster

text: In September 2018 the Nepal government announced a ban on pornographic websites in response to public outcry regarding the rape and murder of a young Nepali girl. A few weeks later, xHamster released a graph that showed that after a slight dip in usage, traffic to its site from Nepal resurged to previous levels. India blocked xHamster again in late 2018. News discussions of India's porn born cited both xHamster's data on Nepal as well as the site's data on traffic from China following that country's 2018 porn ban, which resulted in an 81 per cent decline in visitors from China to the xHamster site.


title: XHamster

text: As a step to promote "healthy relationship, sex, and consent", the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) announced in January 2019 that it would require websites hosting pornography such as xHamster to implement "rigorous" third-party age-verification prior to web entry. This legal measure was designed to restrict access of internet pornography only to viewers of legal age, which is 18 in the UK. An alternative to directly verifying one's age is the option of purchasing a "porn pass" from a designated UK retailer, allowing viewers over the age of 18 to confirm their age anonymously.


title: XHamster

text: In addition to criticizing the technical issues and privacy threats of the UK rule, porn providers, producers, actors, and civil rights advocates claim that underage porn viewership stems from broader societal issues left unresolved by the new law. Likely associated with the planned enactment date of the UK rule, 15 July 2019, xHamster viewership rose sharply in the UK in the preceding months.


title: XHamster

text: After the third delay for the planned UK age-verification regulations, UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright announced in late June 2019 that, besides the delay, he was wary about how the enactment and enforcement of national age-verification rules would vary greatly from nation to nation, much "like pre-EU Europe".


title: XHamster

text: In January 2020, State Representative Brady Brammer of the US state of Utah sponsored a bill that would require a "warning label" on "adult content" in an effort to inform potential viewers of supposed dangers associated with porn consumption on youth. Salt Lake City's FOX 13 reported that the "warning label" concept was "modeled after California's toxic product warning labels". xHamster 'trolled' the Utah State Legislature by adding a label visible to all Utah viewers, stating, "Warning: porn use may lead to decreased stress, increased happiness, and lower rates of teen pregnancy, divorce, and sexual assault. However, it's only for adults". On 18 February 2020, the Utah State Legislature passed the proposal into law.


title: XHamster

text: In Germany, July 2021, cases have been filed by Commission for Youth Media Protection (KJM) at a Düsseldorf court since 2020 requiring MindGeek's subsidiaries and xHamster to request age verification. Four companies declined to require age verification, and the KJM has issued a blanket ban on the IP address of MindGeek websites. The ruling was to be issued in August 2021.


title: XHamster

text: In 2011, xHamster was sued by Fraserside Holdings, Ltd., a producer of adult films and a subsidiary of Private Media Group, Inc. Fraserside and Private alleged that xHamster had infringed their copyrights by streaming copies of their adult media over the Internet. Fraserside brought the case in Iowa, and in 2012 Judge Mark Bennett found that U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction over xHamster because it is a Cyprus-based company with "no offices in Iowa, no employees in Iowa, no telephone number in Iowa[;] ... xHamster does not advertise in Iowa[;] No xHamster officer or director has ever visited Iowa[; and] ... All of xHamster's servers are located outside of the United States". The copyright infringement case was dismissed.


title: XHamster

text: As a part of the marketing strategy, xHamster increasingly publishes job offers to celebrities or persons of temporary public interest. In November 2017, xHamster offered Julie Briskman a job in their marketing & social media team via Twitter after her old employer had terminated her. The woman had attracted attention for flipping the finger at US President Trump while passing his motorcade on a bike. After rapper Drake was accused by Pusha T in a diss track of denying a child, xHamster noticed an increase in search inquiries over 2700% for the alleged mother and former porn actress Rosee Divine. In May 2018, in the aftermath of the diss track release, Divine was offered a job as an official xHamster spokesmodel. In June 2018, Australian rapper Iggy Azalea received a job offer after posting twerking videos on her social media accounts.


title: XHamster

text: In September 2016, Alex Hawkins speaking for xHamster confirmed that they had purchased a sex tape alleged to portray American actress Alexis Arquette, which was put up for sale by an ex-lover shortly after her death. xHamster destroyed all copies of it, announcing that "Ms. Arquette was an icon and activist in the trans community and we could not see someone smear her memory the way the selling party was trying to do".


title: XHamster

text: In February 2017, xHamster held auditions for US President Donald Trump, Trump's family members, and Trump cabinet member lookalikes. The winners will be cast in porn parodies. Alex Hawkins said, "there is nothing more that the American public needs than quality adult content parodies to help them understand the ever-shifting landscape of their Executive Branch of government". In March 2017 John Brutal, a dialysis worker in Minnesota, was selected as the winning contestant to perform the part.


title: XHamster

text: In September 2017, following Twitter "likes" from the account of US senator Ted Cruz, xHamster discovered his lookalike, Searcy Hayes, and offered her $10,000 to be featured in a role as a Ted Cruz look alike.


title: XHamster

text: Following the airing of a Lifetime Network documentary-style film, "Surviving R.Kelly", xHamster reported a 388% increase in R.Kelly related searches since January 2019. The Lifetime film presents R.Kelly's arrest, trial, and acquittal on child pornography charges between 2002 and 2008. Censored from xHamster's website, the "infamous" sex tape features the hip-hop artist engaged in sexual relations with and urinating on, an underage girl. In a bid to reprimand viewers who search for the sex tape, xHamster denounced seeking the tape as both "illegal" and "immoral". xHamster emphasized in their public statement that searching for the video may even be "re-victimizing a minor who could not consent".


title: XHamster

text: After nude outtakes from a 2016 "GQ Magazine" photoshoot of Iggy Azalea were leaked on Twitter in May 2019, xHamster defended the rapper's right to prevent the images' widespread accessibility. In an interview with The Blast in May 2019, Alex Hawkins claimed that disseminating and viewing the stolen photos is "a violation of Iggy's rights". Hawkins also stated that xHamster had "reached out to Iggy Azalea's management team" and "will increase [xHamster's] patrol of Iggy and relevant keywords, and are asking our community to alert us should they spot the photos".


title: XHamster

text: More than four years after retiring from porn, Mia Khalifa remains one of the most searched female actresses on xHamster with over 780 million views, according to a 2019 "Washington Post" article. Khalifa is best known for starring in a film in which she wears a hijab, garnering public criticism and even death threats from the terrorist organization, ISIS.


title: XHamster

text: Early in the COVID-19 global pandemic, xHamster offered free Premium access until the end of March to places affected by the virus such as Tehran, Iran; Daegu, South Korea; Wuhan, China; the Lombardy and Veneto regions of Northern Italy; and Adeje, Canary Islands. The company issued the offer via their official Twitter page with the tagline, "Stay safe with xHamster". In March 2020, Vice reports that xHamster witnessed an "overwhelming surge" in new subscriptions from users in the aforementioned cities and regions which "outpaced xHamster's ability to approve new accounts".


title: XHamster

text: As the COVID-19 pandemic spread, coronavirus-themed porn began appearing on xHamster and other streaming sites in early March 2020.


title: XHamster

text: Following international quarantines, travel bans, and statewide stay-at-home orders in early and mid-2020, many sex toy retailers, livecam platforms, and streaming sites reported record traffic and sales. Coupled with this boom under quarantine is a marked shift towards amateur production on paid access platforms such as xHamsterLive Sex Webcams, FanCentro, and OnlyFans. This shift has resulted in higher profits, flexibility, and creative license afforded to performers.


title: XHamster

text: A 2020 article published by Mashable on changing trends in porn following the coronavirus pandemic cites several user trends reported by xHamster vice president Alex Hawkins. According to Hawkins, while interest in traditional categories of porn such as MILF and incest roleplay porn has decreased, the demand for public sex scenes, kissing, and coronavirus-related adult content has seen a surge in popularity. Hawkins attributes this to a desire for porn which reflects current societal issues and predicts that trends will return to normal when the pandemic is under control.


title: XHamster

text: In honor of Pride Month in June 2020 the site held a 3-day live cam fundraiser, inviting activists, artists, sex workers, and LGBTQ+ content creators to submit 15–30-minute segments of content. The content was promoted on the site's social media channels and through its Pride partner Stripchat, and all proceeds were donated to the trans and sex worker charities the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, the Sex Workers Outreach Project and Rainbow Railroad.


title: XHamster

text: Until 2021, photos and videos could be uploaded anonymously on xHamster. "Vice" reported in 2020 that, according to first-hand research, xHamster used unpaid, untrained and anonymous volunteer moderators, who were observed arguing over what criteria could be used to identify a minor in porn footage. The volunteers were explicitly asked by xHamster to wave through content whose legality was in doubt. xHamster switched its video moderation to be done by paid employees, declining to comment on the reason.


title: XHamster

text: In September 2018, the site released the top seven porn categories most popular among female users of the site, with "cunnilingus", "vibrators", and "eating pussy" ranking as the top three.


title: XHamster

text: From October through December 2018, xHamster reported a ten thousand per cent increase in user searches for the term "The Grinch". Coupled with the widespread popularity of holiday and film-themed pornography, Alex Hawkins credits the recent Hollywood remake of The Grinch with the stark increase in searches.


title: XHamster

text: The site reported an upward trend in searches for sex robots from 2016 to early 2019, pointing to increasing interest in lifelike sex dolls.


title: XHamster

text: In 2019 xHamster reported about 40,000 searches per month for "braces", a preference associated with teen porn but also reported as a fetish on its own.


title: XHamster

text: After a sex scene was aired in an April 2019 episode of the popular television series "Game of Thrones", xHamster reported a marked jump in searches for actress Maisie Williams and her character's name, Arya Stark.


title: XHamster

text: Based on xHamster's survey of 50,000 respondents from over 150 countries, "Cosmopolitan Magazine" reported in May 2019 that "the ideal dream woman is a 25-year-old, 5'5", Eurasian, bisexual woman named 'Shy Yume.'" This supposed "ideal" woman has blue eyes, straight, dark, long hair, an "average" body size, "fully shaved" genitals, and is "not a feminist".


title: XHamster

text: In 2019, xHamster reported a 100% increase in "pirate" related searches between 18 and 19 September. The sudden popularity of pirate-themed searches, most common among 18-35 year old users, is largely attributed to International "Talk Like a Pirate Day", falling on 19 September.


title: XHamster

text: After the release of the 2019 film Joker, xHamster Vice President Alex Hawkins reported an "astounding" 1300% increase in "joker" related searches.


title: XHamster

text: In a 2020 survey of 100,000 xHamster users, the company found that female-identifying viewers are younger, more sexually fluid, and outspend their male-identifying users on porn, even while watching less frequently.


title: XHamster

text: Amid the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, an article published by Vice media outlet cited data released by xHamster which reflects a surge of interest in police-related pornography. The data, which show that search terms such as "cop", "police", and "jail" rose in popularity by 39 per cent in the U.S. and 25 per cent worldwide between the first week of May and the first week of June, was reported in the "Vice" article as part of a broader examination of the racial and social dynamics of cop-related porn.


title: XHamster

text: Based on 2018 viewership trends, xHamster predicts that the number of female viewers in 2019 will increase by more than forty percent. While gay, bisexual, and "heavy" women search terms are on the rise, web traffic for terms such as "redhead" and "teen" are sharply declining; xHamster claims that these changes are largely due to an increase in female viewers and the normalization of porn-viewing among Millennials, who "are less ashamed about porn than any other generation". Not only is web traffic increasing among women, but so is the amount of porn viewed on handheld devices, comprising roughly two-thirds of all xHamster viewership.


title: XHamster

text: Although 2019 viewership trends on xHamster's website signal an increase in free porn consumption, this trend is coupled with an increase in the purchase of "premium" services. The number of new xHamster user accounts has also sharply increased, indicating a desire for private "cam-models" and other "niche porn services".


title: XHamster

text: In their 2019 "Report on Digital Sexuality", xHamster claims a "direct" statistical correlation between frequent porn consumption and bisexuality. The survey gathered viewer data from "more than 11,000 US-based users", finding that the proportion of regular porn viewers who self-identify as gay or bisexual is seven times greater than the percentage of US citizens who identify as LGBT, according to a 2018 Gallup poll.


title: XHamster

text: Additionally, viewers who self-identify as gay or bisexual are more likely than self-identified heterosexuals to watch porn on a daily basis. xHamster speculates that these higher rates of porn consumption amongst members of the LGBTQ community may be related to "a lower stigma associated with watching" porn coupled with broad base support for non-normative forms of "healthy" sexual expression. Associated with these trends, xHamster reports that less than half of all self-identified women viewers are heterosexual. The same study found that nearly half of all viewers consider themselves to be "very" or "somewhat religious". Religious viewers are twice as likely as non-believers to spend up to US$1,000 for a "live cam" video experience.


title: XHamster

text: In a 2019 year-end report published by xHamster, the company found that more than two-thirds (71.49%) of all site traffic was accessed on mobile devices. This is a 12% increase from 2018 and is coupled with an upward trend in amateur and amateur style porn produced on mobile devices. The report also found that more than 100,000 videos are viewed, 1400 videos downloaded and 30 uploaded every sixty seconds on the site.


title: XHamster

text: A "MEL Magazine" article from 2020 cites Alex Hawkins statement that the "shift from studios to performer-producers" is "dramatically changing the industry", resulting in more "realistic" situations and "natural" body types in porn produced via mobile devices. xHamster's 2020 year-end report found that terms such as "natural tits" and "real homemade", and situations such as voyeurism and public sex "have experienced massive growth" in recent years.


title: XHamster

text: In tandem with the growth of handheld porn production and consumption, short clip porn, often only 1–5 seconds, has grown in recent years, migrating onto content hosts such as Reddit and platforms such as Snapchat. The social media platform, TikTok, offers a venue for accessing short clips of softcore, and occasionally hardcore, amateur pornography. Although nudity is officially banned on TikTok, the platform's monitoring algorithm is not perfect, sometimes leading to pornographic content being made publicly available for several hours before deletion.


title: XHamster

text: In a "Forbes" article on the historical developments in the porn industry, xHamster is noted for pioneering free online streaming or "tube" sites in 2007. Following the growth of "tube" sites, fears spread that paid porn would result in the industry's death. Millennials were blamed for a reported decline in the net value of the US porn industry. While paid-access porn has shifted from professionally produced films towards amateur clips and short video streaming, paid porn viewership has not declined. A Mashable article from February 2020 finds that Millennials are in fact "outspending older generations substantially.


title: XHamster

text: Mashable also finds that "starting in the mid-2010s [...] consumer trend data started to show that millennials [...] were willing to spend even more than earlier generations on movies, shows, and music". In support of this claim, Mashable reported that xHamster data finds "millennial buyers spend about twice as much as older demographics" and "make up more than half of xHamster's paying premium consumers", leading Hawkins to assert that "millennials may well be the saviors of the porn industry".


title: XHamster

text: With nearly five million user-labeled videos on xHamster, Alex Hawkins deems broad search terms ineffective at finding specific scenes and videos, while searching through category filters can prove more successful. In an interview with MEL Magazine in 2020, Hawkins claimed that creating an xHamster account either paid or free, "helps AI better recommend new scenes to you based on your previous views and videos you've liked or disliked, [...] follow certain producers and stars, create personal collections and find new content more efficiently".


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service consists of channels in English, German, Spanish, and Arabic. The work of DW is regulated by the Deutsche Welle Act, meaning that content is intended to be independent of government influence. DW is a member of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW offers regularly updated articles on its news website and runs its own center for international media development, DW Akademie. The broadcaster's stated goals are to produce reliable news coverage, provide access to the German language, and promote understanding between peoples. It is also a provider of live streaming world news which can be viewed via its website, YouTube, and various mobile devices and digital media players.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW has been broadcasting since 1953. It is headquartered in Bonn, where its radio programmes are produced. However, television broadcasts are produced almost entirely in Berlin. Both locations create content for DW's news website. As of 2020, Deutsche Welle has 1,668 employees (annual average). In total, over 4,000 distinct people of over 140 nationalities work in DW’s offices in Bonn and Berlin, as well as at other locations worldwide.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW's first shortwave broadcast took place on 3 May 1953 with an address by the then West German President, Theodor Heuss. On 11 June 1953, ARD public broadcasters signed an agreement to share responsibility for Deutsche Welle. At first, it was controlled by Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR). In 1955, NWDR split into Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), WDR assumed responsibility for Deutsche Welle programming. In 1960, Deutsche Welle became an independent public body after a court ruled that while broadcasting "to" Germany was a state matter, broadcasting "from" Germany was part of the federal government's foreign-affairs function. On 7 June 1962, DW joined ARD as a national broadcasting station. Deutsche Welle was originally headquartered in the West German city of Cologne. After reunification, when much of the government relocated to Berlin, the station's headquarters moved to Bonn.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: With German reunification in 1990, Radio Berlin International (RBI), East Germany's international broadcaster ceased to exist. Some of the RBI staff joined Deutsche Welle and DW inherited some broadcasting facilities, including transmitting facilities at Nauen, as well as RBI's frequencies.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW (TV) began as RIAS-TV, a television station launched by the West Berlin broadcaster RIAS (Radio in the American Sector / Rundfunk im amerikanischen Sektor) in August 1988; they also acquired the German Educational Television Network in the United States. The rein of the Berlin Wall the following year and German reunification in 1990 meant that RIAS-TV was to be closed down. On 1 April 1992, Deutsche Welle inherited the RIAS-TV broadcast facilities, using them to start a German- and English-language television channel broadcast via satellite, DW (TV), adding a short Spanish broadcast segment the following year. In 1995, it began 24-hour operation (12 hours German, 10 hours English, 2 hours Spanish). At that time, DW (TV) introduced a new news studio and a new logo.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Deutsche Welle took some of the former independent radio broadcasting service Deutschlandfunk's foreign-language programming in 1993, when Deutschlandfunk was absorbed into the new Deutschlandradio.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In addition to radio and television programming, DW sponsored some published material. For example, the South-Asia Department published "German Heritage: A Series Written for the South Asia Programme" in 1967 and in 1984 published "African Writers on the Air". Both publications were transcripts of DW programming.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In September 1994, Deutsche Welle was the first public broadcaster in Germany with an internet presence, initially www-dw.gmd.de, hosted by the GMD Information Technology Research Center. For its first two years, the site listed little more than contact addresses, although DW's "News Journal" was broadcast in RealAudio from Real's server beginning in 1995, and "Süddeutsche Zeitung"s initial web presence, which included news articles from the newspaper, shared the site. In 1996, it evolved into a news website using the URL dwelle.de; in 2001, the URL changed to www.dw-world.de, and was changed again in 2012, to www.dw.de. Deutsche Welle purchased the domain dw.com, which previously belonged to DiamondWare, in 2013; DW had attempted to claim ownership of the address in 2000, without success. DW eventually moved to the www.dw.com domain on 22 June 2015. According to DW, their website delivers information by topic with an intuitive navigation organized to meet users' expectations. The layout offers more flexibility to feature pictures, videos and in-depth reporting on the day's events in a multimedia and multilingual fashion. They also integrated their Media Center into the dw.de website making it easier for users to access videos, audios and picture galleries from DW's multimedia archive of reports, programs and coverage of special issues.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW's news site is in seven core languages (Arabic, Chinese, English, German, Spanish, Portuguese for Brazil, and Russian), as well as a mixture of news and information in 23 other languages in which Deutsche Welle broadcasts. Persian became the site's eighth focus language in 2007.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: German and European news is DW's central focus, but the site also offers background information about Germany and German language courses. Deutsch, Warum Nicht? (literally: "German, Why Not?") is a personal course for learning the German language, created by Deutsche Welle and the Goethe-Institut.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In 2003, the German government passed a new "Deutsche Welle Act", which defined DW as a tri-media organization, making the Deutsche Welle website an equal partner with DW-TV and DW Radio. The website is available in 30 languages, but focuses on German, English, Spanish, Russian, Brazilian Portuguese, Chinese, and Arabic. Persian became the eighth focus language in 2007.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In March 2009, DW-TV expanded its television services in Asia with two new channels, namely DW-TV Asia and DW-TV Asia+. DW-TV Asia (DW-TV Asien in German) contains 16 hours of German programming and 8 hours in English, whilst DW-TV Asia+ contains 18 hours of English programmes plus 6 hours of German programmes.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In August 2009, DW-TV's carriage in the United Kingdom on Sky channel 794 ceased, although the channel continues to be available via other European satellites receivable in the UK.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In 2011, DW announced a major reduction of service including the closure of most of its FM services in the Balkans (except for Romani), but that it would expand its network of FM partners in Africa. The radio production for Hausa, Kiswahili, French, and Portuguese for Africa were optimized for FM broadcasts and DW also produces a regional radio magazine daily in English, to be rebroadcast by partners in Africa.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW announced it would focus on FM partnerships for Bengali, Urdu, Dari/Pashtu, and Indonesian for South Asia, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: On 1 November 2011, DW discontinued shortwave broadcasts in German, Russian, Persian, and Indonesian and ended its English service outside Africa. Chinese programming was reduced from 120 minutes to 60 minutes a week. As of November 2011, DW only broadcast radio programming via shortwave in: Amharic, Chinese, Dari, English and French for Africa, Hausa, Kiswahili, Pashtu, Portuguese for Africa and Urdu.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: On 25 February 2018, DW-TV published ""The Climate Cover Up – Big Oil's Campaign of Deception"" (2018) after documents confirmed big oil companies have known the burning of fossil fuels impacts climate since 1957.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Since the reorganisation of broadcasting as a result of German reunification, Deutsche Welle has been the only remaining broadcasting corporation under federal law. In contrast to the national public broadcasters, which are financed by the license fee the ARD state broadcasters, Deutschlandradio and ZDF, it is not financed through the broadcasting fee, but from federal taxes. The Ministry for Culture and Media is responsible for the financing, which in turn allows the DW to offer a broadcast with the low to nonexistent advertising time.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: On 22 June 2015, DW TV launched a 24-hour English-language news channel with a new design and a new studio as part of a rebrand to DW News. Previously, DW's news programmes were called "Journal" and broadcast in English in 3-, 15- and 30-minute blocks. The new channel offers 30-minute updates every hour and 60-minute programmes twice a day on weekdays. DW News broadcasts from Berlin but frequently has live social media segments hosted from a specially-designed studio in Bonn. The German, Spanish, and Arabic channels also received a new design.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: At the same time, DW's news website moved from a .de URL to .com and added a social media stream to its front page. The refreshed DW services were launched under the tagline 'Made for Minds'.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Deutsche Welle has developed a two-tier approach that they are using for future growth of their company which consists of a global approach and a regional approach. Within their global approach, DW has now made plans to boost its competitiveness market throughout the world with news and television coverage. The plan implements covering mostly all regions of the world with two television channels in each region. With some exclusions, the entire world will be covered. Hours covered ranges throughout regions and the coverage will be in German, English, Spanish, and Arabic.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: The regional approach looks at marketing over the internet to offer news coverage in languages other than the 4 being offered. With updates on DW's website news will be better tailored to each region. Over time, their plan is to diversify their online coverage with more regional content being covered.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: On 10 April 2019, DW announced that Venezuela's state telecoms regulator Conatel had halted its Spanish-language channel. By 15 April, the broadcasting service was restored.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In 2019, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs accused DW of calling on Russians to take part in recent anti-government protests, and threatened it would take action against the outlet under domestic law if it made such calls again. Shortly after, Russia's parliament accused DW of breaking election legislation and asked the foreign ministry to consider revoking the German broadcaster's right to work in the country. By November, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared he did not support banning foreign media outlets.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: On 3 February 2022, in retaliation to Germany's broadcasting regulator's decision to ban transmission of the Russian state-run RT Deutsch channel over a lack of a broadcasting license, the Russian foreign ministry said that it would shut down DW's Moscow bureau, strip all DW staff of their accreditation and terminate broadcasting of DW in Russia. It also stated that it would begin the procedure of designating DW as a "foreign agent".


title: Deutsche Welle

text: The Moscow office of Deutsche Welle was informed that it would be shut at 9:00 on Friday, 4 February 2022. DW made plans to relocate Moscow operations to the Latvian capital, Riga.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: On 30 June 2022, DW has been banned in Turkey upon the request of Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK). RTÜK, ordered DW in February 2022 to pay the license fee or to terminate their service in Turkey.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW used a relay station in Malta that had three SW and one 600 kW-MW transmitter and gave partial coverage of the Americas, Southern Asia and the Far East. It was inaugurated on 29 July 1974 in exchange for a grant of almost 1 million GBP. The station closed in January 1996.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Formerly, DW shared a transmitting station on Antigua in the Caribbean with the BBC. It was inaugurated on 1 November 1976 and closed on 31 March 2005. It had a relay-exchange with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that allowed DW to use two 250 kW transmitters in Sackville, New Brunswick until that facility closed down in 2012.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In July 2011 Deutsche Welle began implementing a major reform. The main changes have been a radical reduction of shortwave radio broadcasting—from a daily total of 260 to 55 hours—and an expansion of television broadcasting.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW Akademie is Deutsche Welle's international center for media development, media consulting and journalism training. It offers training and consulting services to partners around the world. It works with broadcasters, media organizations, and universities especially in developing and transitioning countries to promote free and independent media. The work is funded mainly by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: DW Akademie's journalism traineeship is an 18-month program for young journalists that provides editorial training in the three areas in which Deutsche Welle produces content: radio, television and online. It is aimed at aspiring journalists from Germany as well as from regions to which Deutsche Welle broadcasts.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: The "International Media Studies" Master's Program, offered in cooperation with the University of Bonn and the University Bonn-Rhein-Sieg of Applied Sciences, is based at DW Akademie. The four-semester program combines the disciplines of media development, media regulation, and communications. The seminars are held in English and German and the degree is aimed at media representatives from developing and transitioning countries.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Carsten von Nahmen became head of DW Akademie in September 2018. He had been DW's senior correspondent in Washington since February 2017 and prior to this, deputy editor-in-chief and head of DW's main news department since 2014. Christian Gramsch was director of DW Akademie from November 2013 until May 2018, and prior to this DW's regional director for multimedia. He succeeded DW Akademie director Gerda Meuer, who had previously been deputy editor-in-chief of Deutsche Welle's radio program, and had earlier worked for various media outlets and as a correspondent for Inter News service. Ute Schaeffer has been DW Akademie's deputy head since 2014 and was previously Deutsche Welle's editor-in-chief.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Deutsche Welle's website has a section dedicated to providing material for those who are interested in learning the German language of all levels based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. They offer free video and audio courses with access to exercises and transcripts. Users can also search for suitable courses and test which level they are at. Among the material available in their site, they offer free access to an animated series called "Harry Lost in Time" (Harry gefangen in der Zeit), for beginners. Through Flash animation, the series tells the story of a fictional character named Harry Walkott, a man who is struck by lightning in the Black Forest during his vacation in Germany and, because of this, becomes stuck in time, with the same day repeating over and over. With an English narration, the series introduces German expressions, words and grammar explanations, and also provides exercises to the user.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In November 2021, Süddeutsche Zeitung published an investigation into social media comments allegedly made by members of DW's Arabic service, including posts that appeared to downplay the Holocaust or perpetuate anti-Jewish stereotypes. On 3 December 2021, DW announced that it was suspending four employees and one freelancer during an external investigation, to be led by former German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and psychologist Ahmad Mansour, into the allegations. On 7 February, this investigation concluded that DW was correct to suspend these five employees, and recommended further action against eight other employees; it also recommended ending cooperation agreements with some Middle East-based news outlets, but concluded that there was no "structural antisemitism" at DW. Following the report, DW terminated the contracts of several other employees, including the former bureau chief in Beirut, who advocated the execution of "[a]nyone who has to do with the Israelis"; an employee who claimed that Israel controls people's brains "through art, media and music"; and a third journalist had posted "the Holocaust is a lie." Several of those fired stated that they had not been given a chance to defend their case, criticized DW's lack of clarity regarding guidelines for what constituted antisemitism, and said they felt they were being censored in what they could write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: In September 2022, Farah Maraqa, one of seven Arab employees of DW fired in February, subsequently sued DW and won her case. The court ruled that her dismissal on charges of anti-Semitism was "legally unjustified". A former colleague, Maram Salem, won her case in July against DW for unlawful termination, ruling that her Facebook posts were not anti-Semitic.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: Also in September 2022, Deutsche Welle updated its Code of Conduct to include "Germany’s historical responsibility for the Holocaust is also a reason for which we support the right of Israel to exist" among their values and noted antisemitism is grounds for dismissal. The updated code of conduct is thought to improve Deutsche Welles chances of successfully terminating antisemitic employees in the future.


title: Deutsche Welle

text: On 5 December 2021, Deutsche Welle announced that it would suspend its partnership with a Jordanian partner, Roya TV, on account of antisemitic content published on Roya's social media. Guido Baumhauer, a senior executive with DW, apologized, saying: "We are truly sorry that we did not notice these disgusting images." Roya TV rejected the accusation and said it was the target of "hostile campaign" by unnamed parties.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine II (born Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power following the overthrow of her husband, Peter III. Under her long reign, inspired by the ideas of the Enlightenment, Russia experienced a renaissance of culture and sciences, which led to the founding of many new cities, universities, and theaters; along with large-scale immigration from the rest of Europe, and the recognition of Russia as one of the great powers of Europe.


title: Catherine the Great

text: In her accession to power and her rule of the empire, Catherine often relied on her noble favourites, most notably Count Grigory Orlov and Grigory Potemkin. Assisted by highly successful generals such as Alexander Suvorov and Pyotr Rumyantsev, and admirals such as Samuel Greig and Fyodor Ushakov, she governed at a time when the Russian Empire was expanding rapidly by conquest and diplomacy. In the south, the Crimean Khanate was crushed following victories over the Bar Confederation and Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. With the support of the United Kingdom, Russia colonised the territories of Novorossiya along the coasts of the Black and Azov Seas. In the west, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, ruled by Catherine's former lover King Stanisław August Poniatowski, was eventually partitioned, with the Russian Empire gaining the largest share. In the east, Russians became the first Europeans to colonise Alaska, establishing Russian America.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Many cities and towns were founded on Catherine's orders in the newly conquered lands, most notably Odessa, Dnipro (then known as Yekaterinoslav), Kherson, Mykolaiv and Sevastopol. An admirer of Peter the Great, Catherine continued to modernise Russia along Western European lines. However, military conscription and the economy continued to depend on serfdom, and the increasing demands of the state and of private landowners intensified the exploitation of serf labour. This was one of the chief reasons behind rebellions, including Pugachev's Rebellion of Cossacks, nomads, peoples of the Volga, and peasants.


title: Catherine the Great

text: The period of Catherine the Great's rule is also known as the Catherinian Era. The "Manifesto on Freedom of the Nobility", issued during the short reign of Peter III and confirmed by Catherine, freed Russian nobles from compulsory military or state service. Construction of many mansions of the nobility, in the classical style endorsed by the empress, changed the face of the country. She is often included in the ranks of the enlightened despots. As a patron of the arts, she presided over the age of the Russian Enlightenment, including the establishment of the Smolny Institute of Noble Maidens, the first state-financed higher education institution for women in Europe.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine was born in Stettin, Province of Pomerania, Kingdom of Prussia, Holy Roman Empire, as Princess Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg. Her mother was Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Her father, Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, belonged to the ruling German family of Anhalt. He failed to become the duke of Duchy of Courland and Semigallia and at the time of his daughter's birth held the rank of a Prussian general in his capacity as governor of the city of Stettin. However, because her second cousin Peter III converted to Orthodox Christianity, her mother's brother became the heir to the Swedish throne and two of her first cousins, Gustav III and Charles XIII, later became Kings of Sweden. In accordance with the custom then prevailing in the ruling dynasties of Germany, she received her education chiefly from a French governess and from tutors. According to her memoirs, Sophie was regarded as a tomboy, and trained herself to master a sword.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Sophie's childhood was very uneventful. She once wrote to her correspondent Baron Grimm: "I see nothing of interest in it." Although Sophie was born a princess, her family had very little money. Her rise to power was supported by her mother Joanna's wealthy relatives, who were both nobles and royal relations. The more than 300 sovereign entities of the Holy Roman Empire, many of them quite small and powerless, made for a highly competitive political system as the various princely families fought for advantage over each other, often via political marriages. For the smaller German princely families, an advantageous marriage was one of the best means of advancing their interests, and the young Sophie was groomed throughout her childhood to be the wife of some powerful ruler in order to improve the position of the reigning house of Anhalt. Besides her native German, Sophie became fluent in French, the lingua franca of European elites in the 18th century. The young Sophie received the standard education for an 18th-century German princess, with a concentration upon learning the etiquette expected of a lady, French, and Lutheran theology.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Sophie first met her future husband, who would become Peter III of Russia, at the age of 10. Peter was her second cousin. Based on her writings, she found Peter detestable upon meeting him. She disliked his pale complexion and his fondness for alcohol at such a young age. Peter also still played with toy soldiers. She later wrote that she stayed at one end of the castle, and Peter at the other.


title: Catherine the Great

text: The choice of Princess Sophie as wife of the future tsar was one result of the Lopukhina affair in which Count Jean Armand de Lestocq and King Frederick the Great of Prussia took an active part. The objective was to strengthen the friendship between Prussia and Russia, to weaken the influence of Austria, and to overthrow the chancellor Alexey Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a known partisan of the Austrian alliance on whom Russian Empress Elizabeth relied. The diplomatic intrigue failed, largely due to the intervention of Sophie's mother, Joanna Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Historical accounts portray Joanna as a cold, abusive woman who loved gossip and court intrigues. Her hunger for fame centered on her daughter's prospects of becoming empress of Russia, but she infuriated Empress Elizabeth, who eventually banned her from the country for spying for King Frederick. Empress Elizabeth knew the family well and had intended to marry Princess Joanna's brother Charles Augustus (Karl August von Holstein); however, he died of smallpox in 1727 before the wedding could take place. Despite Joanna's interference, Empress Elizabeth took a strong liking to Sophie, and Sophie and Peter eventually married in 1745.


title: Catherine the Great

text: When Sophie arrived in Russia in 1744, she spared no effort to ingratiate herself not only with Empress Elizabeth but with her husband and with the Russian people as well. She applied herself to learning the Russian language with zeal, rising at night and walking about her bedroom barefoot, repeating her lessons. When she wrote her memoirs, she said she made the decision then to do whatever was necessary and to profess to believe whatever was required of her to become qualified to wear the crown. Although she mastered the language, she retained an accent.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Sophie recalled in her memoirs that as soon as she arrived in Russia, she fell ill with a pleuritis that almost killed her. She credited her survival to frequent bloodletting; in a single day, she had four phlebotomies. Her mother's opposition to this practice brought her the empress's disfavour. When Sophie's situation looked desperate, her mother wanted her confessed by a Lutheran pastor. Awaking from her delirium, however, Sophie said, "I don't want any Lutheran; I want my Orthodox father [clergyman]". This raised her in the empress's esteem.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Princess Sophie's father, a devout German Lutheran, opposed his daughter's conversion to Eastern Orthodoxy. Despite his objections, on 28 June 1744, the Russian Orthodox Church received Princess Sophie as a member with the new name Catherine (Yekaterina or Ekaterina) and the (artificial) patronymic Алексеевна (Alekseyevna, daughter of Aleksey), so that she was in all respects the namesake of Catherine I, the mother of Elizabeth and the grandmother of Peter III. On the following day, the formal betrothal of Catherine and Peter took place and the long-planned dynastic marriage finally occurred on 21 August 1745 in Saint Petersburg. Sophie had turned 16. Her father did not travel to Russia for the wedding. The bridegroom, known as Peter von Holstein-Gottorp, had become Duke of Holstein-Gottorp (located in the north-west of Germany near the border with Denmark) in 1739. The newlyweds settled in the palace of Oranienbaum, which remained the residence of the "young court" for many years. From there, they governed the duchy (which occupied less than a third of the current German state of Schleswig-Holstein, even including that part of Schleswig occupied by Denmark) to obtain experience to govern Russia.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Apart from providing that experience, the marriage was unsuccessful—it was not consummated for years due to Peter III's mental immaturity. After Peter took a mistress, Catherine became involved with other prominent court figures. She soon became popular with several powerful political groups that opposed her husband. Bored with her husband, Catherine became an avid reader of books, mostly in French. She disparaged her husband for his devotion to reading on the one hand "Lutheran prayer-books, the other the history of and trial of some highway robbers who had been hanged or broken on the wheel". It was during this period that she first read Voltaire and the other "philosophes" of the French Enlightenment. As she learned Russian, she became increasingly interested in the literature of her adopted country. Finally, it was the "Annals" by Tacitus that caused what she called a "revolution" in her teenage mind as Tacitus was the first intellectual she read who understood power politics as they are, not as they should be. She was especially impressed with his argument that people do not act for their professed idealistic reasons, and instead she learned to look for the "hidden and interested motives".


title: Catherine the Great

text: According to Alexander Hertzen, who edited a version of Catherine's memoirs, Catherine had her first sexual relationship with Sergei Saltykov while living at Oranienbaum as her marriage to Peter had not been consummated, as Catherine later claimed. Catherine nonetheless left the final version of her memoirs to Paul I in which she explained why Paul had been Peter's son. Sergei Saltykov was used to make Peter jealous, and relations with Saltykov were platonic. Catherine wanted to become an empress herself and did not want another heir to the throne; however, Empress Elizabeth blackmailed Peter and Catherine to produce this heir. Peter and Catherine had both been involved in a 1749 Russian military plot to crown Peter (together with Catherine) in Elizabeth's stead. As a result of this plot, Elizabeth likely wanted to leave both Catherine and her accomplice Peter without any rights to the Russian throne. Elizabeth therefore allowed Catherine to have sexual lovers only after a new legal heir, Catherine and Peter's son, survived and appeared to be strong.


title: Catherine the Great

text: After this, Catherine carried on sexual liaisons over the years with many men, including Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, Grigory Grigoryevich Orlov (1734–1783), Alexander Vasilchikov, Grigory Potemkin, Ivan Rimsky-Korsakov, and others. She became friends with Princess Ekaterina Vorontsova-Dashkova, the sister of her husband's official mistress. In Dashkov's opinion, Dashkov introduced Catherine to several powerful political groups that opposed her husband; however, Catherine had been involved in military schemes against Elizabeth with the likely goal of subsequently getting rid of Peter III since at least 1749.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Peter III's temperament became quite unbearable for those who resided in the palace. He would announce trying drills in the morning to male servants, who later joined Catherine in her room to sing and dance until late hours.


title: Catherine the Great

text: In 1759, Catherine became pregnant with her second child, Anna, who only lived to 14 months. Due to various rumours of Catherine's promiscuity, Peter was led to believe he was not the child's biological father and is known to have proclaimed, "Go to the devil!" when Catherine angrily dismissed his accusation. She thus spent much of this time alone in her private boudoir to hide away from Peter's abrasive personality. In the first version of her memoirs, edited and published by Alexander Hertzen, Catherine strongly implied that the real father of her son Paul was not Peter, but rather Saltykov.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine recalled in her memoirs her optimistic and resolute mood before her accession to the throne:


title: Catherine the Great

text: I used to say to myself that happiness and misery depend on ourselves. If you feel unhappy, raise yourself above unhappiness, and so act that your happiness may be independent of all eventualities.


title: Catherine the Great

text: After the death of the Empress Elizabeth on 5 January 1762 (OS: 25 December 1761), Peter succeeded to the throne as Emperor Peter III, and Catherine became empress consort. The imperial couple moved into the new Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. The emperor's eccentricities and policies, including a great admiration for the Prussian king Frederick II, alienated the same groups that Catherine had cultivated. Russia and Prussia had fought each other during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), and Russian troops had occupied Berlin in 1761. Peter, however, supported Frederick II, eroding much of his support among the nobility. Peter ceased Russian operations against Prussia, and Frederick suggested the partition of Polish territories with Russia. Peter also intervened in a dispute between his Duchy of Holstein and Denmark over the province of Schleswig (see Count Johann Hartwig Ernst von Bernstorff). As Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, Peter planned war against Denmark, Russia's traditional ally against Sweden.


title: Catherine the Great

text: In July 1762, barely six months after becoming emperor, Peter lingered in Oranienbaum with his Holstein-born courtiers and relatives, while his wife lived in another palace nearby. On the night of 8 July (OS: 27 June 1762), Catherine was given the news that one of her co-conspirators had been arrested by her estranged husband and that all they had been planning must take place at once. The next day, she left the palace and departed for the Ismailovsky Regiment, where she delivered a speech asking the soldiers to protect her from her husband. Catherine then left with the Ismailovsky Regiment to go to the Semenovsky Barracks, where the clergy was waiting to ordain her as the sole occupant of the Russian throne. She had her husband arrested, and forced him to sign a document of abdication, leaving no one to dispute her accession to the throne. On 17 July 1762—eight days after the coup that amazed the outside world and just six months after his accession to the throne—Peter III died at Ropsha, possibly at the hands of Alexei Orlov (younger brother to Grigory Orlov, then a court favourite and a participant in the coup). Peter supposedly was assassinated, but it is unknown how he died. The official cause, after an autopsy, was a severe attack of haemorrhoidal colic and an apoplexy stroke.


title: Catherine the Great

text: At the time of Peter III's overthrow, other potential rivals for the throne included Ivan VI (1740–1764), who had been confined at Schlüsselburg in Lake Ladoga from the age of six months and who was thought to be insane. Ivan VI was assassinated during an attempt to free him as part of a failed coup. Like Empress Elizabeth before her, Catherine had given strict instructions that Ivan was to be killed in the event of any such attempt. Yelizaveta Alekseyevna Tarakanova (1753–1775) was another potential rival.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Although Catherine did not descend from the Romanov dynasty, her ancestors included members of the Rurik dynasty, which preceded the Romanovs. She succeeded her husband as empress regnant, following the precedent established when Catherine I succeeded her husband Peter the Great in 1725. Historians debate Catherine's technical status, whether as a regent or as a usurper, tolerable only during the minority of her son, Grand Duke Paul.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine was crowned at the Assumption Cathedral in Moscow on 22 September 1762. Her coronation marks the creation of one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty, the Imperial Crown of Russia, designed by Swiss-French court diamond jeweller Jérémie Pauzié. Inspired by Byzantine design, the crown was constructed of two half spheres, one gold and one silver, representing the eastern and western Roman empires, divided by a foliate garland and fastened with a low hoop. The crown contains 75 pearls and 4,936 Indian diamonds forming laurel and oak leaves, the symbols of power and strength, and is surmounted by a 398.62-carat ruby spinel that previously belonged to the Empress Elizabeth, and a diamond cross. The crown was produced in a record two months and weighed 2.3 kg (5.1 lbs). From 1762, the Great Imperial Crown was the coronation crown of all Romanov emperors until the monarchy's abolition in 1917. It is one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty and is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum.


title: Catherine the Great

text: During her reign, Catherine extended the borders of the Russian Empire by some , absorbing New Russia, Crimea, the North Caucasus, right-bank Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, and Courland at the expense, mainly, of two powers—the Ottoman Empire and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine's foreign minister, Nikita Panin (in office 1763–1781), exercised considerable influence from the beginning of her reign. A shrewd statesman, Panin dedicated much effort and millions of rubles to setting up a "Northern Accord" between Russia, Prussia, Poland and Sweden, to counter the power of the Bourbon–Habsburg League. When it became apparent that his plan could not succeed, Panin fell out of favour and Catherine had him replaced with Ivan Osterman (in office 1781–1797).


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine agreed to a commercial treaty with Great Britain in 1766, but stopped short of a full military alliance. Although she could see the benefits of Britain's friendship, she was wary of Britain's increased power following its complete victory in the Seven Years' War, which threatened the European balance of power.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Peter the Great had succeeded in gaining a toehold in the south, on the edge of the Black Sea, in the Azov campaigns. Catherine completed the conquest of the south, making Russia the dominant power in the Balkans after the Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774. Russia inflicted some of the heaviest defeats ever suffered by the Ottoman Empire, including the Battle of Chesma (5–7 July 1770) and the Battle of Kagul (21 July 1770). In 1769, a last major Crimean–Nogai slave raid, which ravaged the Russian held territories in Ukraine, saw the capture of up to 20,000 slaves.


title: Catherine the Great

text: The Russian victories procured access to the Black Sea and allowed Catherine's government to incorporate present-day southern Ukraine, where the Russians founded the new cities of Odessa, Nikolayev, Yekaterinoslav (literally: "the Glory of Catherine"), and Kherson. The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, signed 10 July 1774, gave the Russians territories at Azov, Kerch, Yenikale, Kinburn, and the small strip of Black Sea coast between the rivers Dnieper and Bug. The treaty also removed restrictions on Russian naval or commercial traffic in the Azov Sea, granted to Russia the position of protector of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and made the Crimea a protectorate of Russia. Russia's State Council in 1770 announced a policy in favour of eventual Crimean independence. Catherine named Şahin Giray, a Crimean Tatar leader, to head the Crimean state and maintain friendly relations with Russia. His period of rule proved disappointing after repeated effort to prop up his regime through military force and monetary aid. Finally Catherine annexed the Crimea in 1783. The palace of the Crimean Khanate passed into the hands of the Russians. In 1787, Catherine conducted a triumphal procession in the Crimea, which helped provoke the next Russo-Turkish War.


title: Catherine the Great

text: The Ottomans restarted hostilities in the Russo-Turkish War of 1787–1792. This war was another catastrophe for the Ottomans, ending with the Treaty of Jassy (1792), which legitimised the Russian claim to the Crimea and granted the Yedisan region to Russia.


title: Catherine the Great

text: In the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783), Russia agreed to protect Georgia against any new invasion and further political aspirations of their Persian suzerains. Catherine waged a new war against Persia in 1796 after they, under the new king Agha Mohammad Khan, had again invaded Georgia and established rule in 1795 and had expelled the newly established Russian garrisons in the Caucasus. The ultimate goal for the Russian government, however, was to topple the anti-Russian shah (king), and to replace him with a half-brother, Morteza Qoli Khan, who had defected to Russia and was therefore pro-Russian.


title: Catherine the Great

text: It was widely expected that a 13,000-strong Russian corps would be led by the seasoned general, Ivan Gudovich, but the empress followed the advice of her lover, Prince Zubov, and entrusted the command to his youthful brother, Count Valerian Zubov. The Russian troops set out from Kizlyar in April 1796 and stormed the key fortress of Derbent on 10 May. The event was glorified by the court poet Derzhavin in his famous ode; he later commented bitterly on Zubov's inglorious return from the expedition in another remarkable poem.


title: Catherine the Great

text: By mid-June 1796, Zubov's troops overran without any resistance most of the territory of modern-day Azerbaijan, including three principal cities—Baku, Shemakha, and Ganja. By November, they were stationed at the confluence of the Araks and Kura Rivers, poised to attack mainland Iran. In this month, the empress of Russia died and her successor Paul, who detested that the Zubovs had other plans for the army, ordered the troops to retreat to Russia. This reversal aroused the frustration and enmity of the powerful Zubovs and other officers who took part in the campaign: many of them would be among the conspirators who arranged Paul's murder five years later.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine longed for recognition as an enlightened sovereign. She refused the Duchy of Holstein-Gottorp which had ports on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and refrained from having a Russian army in Germany. Instead she pioneered for Russia the role that Britain later played through most of the 19th and early 20th centuries as an international mediator in disputes that could, or did, lead to war. She acted as mediator in the War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779) between the German states of Prussia and Austria. In 1780, she established a League of Armed Neutrality, designed to defend neutral shipping from being searched by the British Royal Navy during the American Revolutionary War.


title: Catherine the Great

text: From 1788 to 1790, Russia fought a war against Sweden, a conflict instigated by Catherine's cousin, King Gustav III of Sweden, who expected to overrun the Russian armies still engaged in war against the Ottoman Turks, and hoped to strike Saint Petersburg directly. But Russia's Baltic Fleet checked the Royal Swedish navy in the tied Battle of Hogland (July 1788), and the Swedish army failed to advance. Denmark declared war on Sweden in 1788 (the Theatre War). After the decisive defeat of the Russian fleet at the Battle of Svensksund in 1790, the parties signed the Treaty of Värälä (14 August 1790), returning all conquered territories to their respective owners and confirming the Treaty of Åbo. Russia was to stop any involvement in internal affairs of Sweden. Large sums were paid to Gustav III. Peace ensued for 20 years in spite of the assassination of Gustav III in 1792.


title: Catherine the Great

text: In 1764, Catherine placed Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, her former lover, on the Polish throne. Although the idea of partitioning Poland came from the King Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine took a leading role in carrying it out in the 1790s. In 1768, she formally became the protector of political rights of dissidents and peasants of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which provoked an anti-Russian uprising in Poland, the Confederation of Bar (1768–72), supported by France. After the rebels, their French and European volunteers, and their allied Ottoman Empire had been defeated, she established in the Commonwealth a system of government fully controlled by the Russian Empire through a Permanent Council, under the supervision of her ambassadors and envoys.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Being afraid of the May Constitution of Poland (1791) that might lead to a resurgence in the power of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and the growing democratic movements inside the Commonwealth might become a threat to the European monarchies, Catherine decided to refrain from her planned intervention into France and to intervene in Poland instead. She provided support to a Polish anti-reform group known as the Targowica Confederation. After defeating Polish loyalist forces in the Polish–Russian War of 1792 and in the Kościuszko Uprising (1794), Russia completed the partitioning of Poland, dividing all of the remaining Commonwealth territory with Prussia and Austria (1795).


title: Catherine the Great

text: The Qianlong Emperor of China was committed to an expansionist policy in Central Asia and saw the Russian Empire as a potential rival, making for difficult and unfriendly relations between Beijing and Saint Petersburg. In 1762, he unilaterally abrogated the Treaty of Kyakhta, which governed the caravan trade between the two empires. Another source of tension was the wave of Dzungar Mongol fugitives from the Chinese state who took refuge with the Russians. The Dzungar genocide which was committed by the Qing state had led many Dzungars to seek sanctuary in the Russian Empire, and it was also one of the reasons for the abrogation of the Treaty of Kyakhta. Catherine perceived that the Qianlong emperor was an unpleasant and arrogant neighbour, once saying: "I shall not die until I have ejected the Turks from Europe, suppressed the pride of China and established trade with India". In a 1790 letter to Baron de Grimm written in French, she called the Qianlong Emperor ""mon voisin chinois aux petits yeux"" ("my Chinese neighbour with small eyes").


title: Catherine the Great

text: In the Far East, Russians became active in fur trapping in Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands. This spurred Russian interest in opening trade with Japan to the south for supplies and food. In 1783, storms drove a Japanese sea captain, Daikokuya Kōdayū, ashore in the Aleutian Islands, at that time Russian territory. Russian local authorities helped his party, and the Russian government decided to use him as a trade envoy. On 28 June 1791, Catherine granted Daikokuya an audience at Tsarskoye Selo. Subsequently, in 1792, the Russian government dispatched a trade mission to Japan, led by Adam Laxman. The Tokugawa shogunate received the mission, but negotiations failed.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Nicholas I, her grandson, evaluated the foreign policy of Catherine the Great as a dishonest one. Catherine failed to reach any of the initial goals she had put forward. Her foreign policy lacked a long-term strategy and from the very start was characterised by a series of mistakes. She lost the large territories of the Russian protectorate of the Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania and left its territories to Prussia and Austria. The Commonwealth had become the Russian protectorate since the reign of Peter I, but he did not intervene into the problem of political freedoms of dissidents advocating for their religious freedoms only. Catherine did turn Russia into a global great power not only a European one but with quite a different reputation from what she initially had planned as an honest policy. The global trade by Russian natural resources and Russian grain provoked famines, starvation and fear of famines in Russia. Her dynasty lost power because of this and of a war with Austria and Germany, impossible without her foreign policy.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Russian economic development was well below the standards in western Europe. Historian François Cruzet writes that Russia under Catherine:


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine imposed a comprehensive system of state regulation of merchants' activities. It was a failure because it narrowed and stifled entrepreneurship and did not reward economic development. She had more success when she strongly encouraged the migration of the Volga Germans, farmers from Germany who settled mostly in the Volga River Valley region. They indeed helped modernise the sector that totally dominated the Russian economy. They introduced numerous innovations regarding wheat production and flour milling, tobacco culture, sheep raising, and small-scale manufacturing.


title: Catherine the Great

text: In 1768, the Assignation Bank was given the task of issuing the first government paper money. It opened in Saint Petersburg and Moscow in 1769. Several bank branches were afterwards established in other towns, called government towns. Paper notes were issued upon payment of similar sums in copper money, which were also refunded upon the presentation of those notes. The emergence of these assignation rubles was necessary due to large government spending on military needs, which led to a shortage of silver in the treasury (transactions, especially in foreign trade, were conducted almost exclusively in silver and gold coins). Assignation rubles circulated on equal footing with the silver ruble; a market exchange rate for these two currencies was ongoing. The use of these notes continued until 1849.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine paid a great deal of attention to financial reform, and relied heavily on the advice of Prince A. A. Viazemski. She found that piecemeal reform worked poorly because there was no overall view of a comprehensive state budget. Money was needed for wars and necessitated the junking the old financial institutions. A key principle was responsibilities defined by function. It was instituted by the Fundamental Law of 7 November 1775. Vaizemski's Office of State Revenue took centralised control and by 1781, the government possessed its first approximation of a state budget.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine made public health a priority. She made use of the social theory ideas of German cameralism and French physiocracy, as well as Russian precedents and experiments such as foundling homes. She launched the Moscow Foundling Home and lying-in hospital, 1764, and Paul's Hospital, 1763. She had the government collect and publish vital statistics. In 1762 called on the army to upgrade its medical services. She established a centralised medical administration charged with initiating vigorous health policies. Catherine decided to have herself inoculated against smallpox by Thomas Dimsdale, a British doctor. While this was considered a controversial method at the time, she succeeded. Her son Pavel later was inoculated as well. Catherine then sought to have inoculations throughout her empire and stated: "My objective was, through my example, to save from death the multitude of my subjects who, not knowing the value of this technique, and frightened of it, were left in danger". By 1800, approximately 2 million inoculations (almost 6% of the population) were administered in the Russian Empire. Historians consider her efforts to be a success.


title: Catherine the Great

text: According to a census taken from 1754 to 1762, Catherine owned 500,000 serfs. A further 2.8 million belonged to the Russian state.


title: Catherine the Great

text: At the time of Catherine's reign, the landowning noble class owned the serfs, who were bound to the land they tilled. Children of serfs were born into serfdom and worked the same land their parents had. Even before the rule of Catherine, serfs had very limited rights, but they were not exactly slaves. While the state did not technically allow them to own possessions, some serfs were able to accumulate enough wealth to pay for their freedom. The understanding of law in Imperial Russia by all sections of society was often weak, confused, or nonexistent, particularly in the provinces where most serfs lived. This is why some serfs were able to do things such as to accumulate wealth. To become serfs, people conceded their freedoms to a landowner in exchange for their protection and support in times of hardship. In addition, they received land to till, but were taxed a certain percentage of their crops to give to their landowners. These were the privileges a serf was entitled to and that nobles were bound to carry out. All of this was true before Catherine's reign, and this is the system she inherited.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Catherine did initiate some changes to serfdom. If a noble did not live up to his side of the deal, the serfs could file complaints against him by following the proper channels of law. Catherine gave them this new right, but in exchange they could no longer appeal directly to her. She did this because she did not want to be bothered by the peasantry, but did not want to give them reason to revolt. In this act, she gave the serfs a legitimate bureaucratic status they had lacked before. Some serfs were able to use their new status to their advantage. For example, serfs could apply to be freed if they were under illegal ownership, and non-nobles were not allowed to own serfs. Some serfs did apply for freedom and were successful. In addition, some governors listened to the complaints of serfs and punished nobles, but this was by no means universal.


title: Catherine the Great

text: Other than these, the rights of a serf were very limited. A landowner could punish his serfs at his discretion, and under Catherine the Great gained the ability to sentence his serfs to hard labour in Siberia, a punishment normally reserved for convicted criminals. The only thing a noble could not do to his serfs was to kill them. The life of a serf belonged to the state. Historically, when the serfs faced problems they could not solve on their own (such as abusive masters), they often appealed to the autocrat, and continued doing so during Catherine's reign, but she signed legislation prohibiting it. Although she did not want to communicate directly with the serfs, she did create some measures to improve their conditions as a class and reduce the size of the institution of serfdom. For example, she took action to limit the number of new serfs; she eliminated many ways for people to become serfs, culminating in the manifesto of 17 March 1775, which prohibited a serf who had once been freed from becoming a serf again.


title: Catherine the Great

text: While the majority of serfs were farmers bound to the land, a noble could have his serfs sent away to learn a trade or be educated at a school as well as employ them at businesses that paid wages. This happened more often during Catherine's reign because of the new schools she established. Only in this way apart from conscription to the army could a serf leave the farm for which he was responsible but this was used for selling serfs to people who could not own them legally because of absence of nobility abroad.


title: Catherine the Great

text: However, if the empress' policies were too extreme or too disliked, she was not considered the true empress. In these cases, it was necessary to replace this "fake" empress with the "true" empress, whoever she may be. Because the serfs had no political power, they rioted to convey their message. However, usually, if the serfs did not like the policies of the empress, they saw the nobles as corrupt and evil, preventing the people of Russia from communicating with the well-intentioned empress and misinterpreting her decrees. However, they were already suspicious of Catherine upon her accession because she had annulled an act by Peter III that essentially freed the serfs belonging to the Orthodox Church. Naturally, the serfs did not like it when Catherine tried to take away their right to petition her because they felt as though she had severed their connection to the autocrat, and their power to appeal to her. Far away from the capital, they were confused as to the circumstances of her accession to the throne.