YouTube and Twitter may be banned in Russia: what is the reason - ForumDaily
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YouTube and Twitter may be banned in Russia: what is the reason

A group of deputies submitted to the State Duma a bill on amendments to the law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection,” providing for Roskomnadzor to block resources that “allow discrimination” against Russian media, writes Air force.

Photo: Shutterstock

The document introduces sanctions for Internet resources for “discrimination against materials from Russian media.” It contains the status of the owner of an information resource involved in violations of the rights and freedoms of Russians.

This status, according to the amendments, can be assigned by the Prosecutor General in agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“A decision may also be made if access to publicly important information on an Internet resource is limited on the basis of nationality, language, or in connection with the imposition of sanctions against Russia or its citizens,” says the explanatory note to the document. Among the authors of the initiative are deputy Alexander Khinshtein and member of the Federation Council Alexey Pushkov.

The authorities will be able to fully or partially restrict access to resources, the owners of which have been found to be involved in such violations. In particular, they will be entitled to slow down traffic. The fine for Internet resources will be from several thousand to three million rubles (almost 40 thousand dollars), one of the co-authors of the bill, deputy Anton Gorelkin, told RIA Novosti.

“Since April 2020, the authorized bodies of the Russian Federation have been recording complaints from media editors about censorship of their accounts by foreign Internet platforms Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Media outlets such as Russia Today, RIA Novosti, and Crimea 24 were also censored. In total, about 20 cases of discrimination were recorded,” the explanatory note says.

Discriminatory actions against Russian clients of foreign services do exist, and this must be resolved, said the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov.

“You see, these giants also have problems with their clients,” he told reporters. “They not only discriminate against our media and our users, they also discriminate against their users.” That is, this problem is actually broader in nature. But in this case, let them deal with their own issues, and the main thing for us is to protect our users from such discrimination.”

How the internet reacted

The expert community did not agree with this interpretation.

“Censorship is when the state restricts freedom of speech; private platforms, by definition, cannot engage in censorship unless the state forces them to do so,” Karen Kazaryan, an analyst at the Russian Association of Electronic Communications, told the BBC. He did not see the logic in the new blocking initiative: “That is, we are restricting the rights of Russians, so we will decide en masse, without a court decision, without anything, to restrict the rights of Russians?”

The public Internet activist, head of Roskomsvoboda Artem Kozlyuk agrees with him.

“Of course, we are not talking about censorship as such when we talk about private platforms,” he told the BBC. “Of course, users have the right to complain that their materials are blocked within these social networks, but this is considered exclusively within the site itself, the Internet resource itself.”

Some Twitter users were surprised that the Russian authorities have started to counter censorship on the Internet, despite the fact that in recent years they have created an array of legislative measures that regulate the Internet and maintain a register of prohibited sites.

The public is surprised why those who misinformed viewers of federal channels about the coronavirus pandemic were not punished.

On the subject: The United States passed an anti-doping law named after a Russian informant

Roskomnadzor may block YouTube?

Experts believe this is possible. According to Kozlyuk from Roskomsvoboda, now there is a greater chance that Russia will restrict access to the world's largest Internet resources.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if next year we see entries in the registry about the blocking of Twitte, Facebook, YouTube or some other Internet services,” he said.

Moreover, in the case of YouTube, it is possible that Roskomnadzor will be able to make it unsuitable for use in Russia.

“The heavier the content that a particular platform generates, the easier it is to apply sanctions to it. If we talk about Youtube, then you can reduce the quality in this way by making obstacles using equipment that is on the side of the telecom operator. As a result, it seems that it will not be blocked, but it will be difficult to use,” Kozlyuk explained. According to him, in this case Russians will lose the opportunity to stream on YouTube or watch videos there in good quality.

In theory, Roskomnadzor has the technical ability to restrict traffic to certain sites, Kozlyuk explains. At the level of telecom operators, DPI equipment is already being implemented, which can isolate a certain type of traffic and manipulate it.

“For example, YouTube traffic will be isolated within the entire stream, the rest will be passed through, and YouTube speed will be limited,” Kozlyuk explained.

True, he made a reservation that a lot depends on the decision of the leaders of the same Google, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook: “Will they resist, like Telegram, or let everything take its course, like Linkedin did.” Roskomnadzor failed to block Telegram in Russia: the agency fought with the messenger for more than two years, but eventually lifted the block in the summer of 2020, and in November even started its own channel on Telegram.

Ghazaryan also admits that formal blocking of YouTube or Twitter is possible, but reminds that there are plenty of ways to circumvent the restrictions.

“And if we consider that these resources are used by almost all Russian Internet users, then the consequences of the fact that 90 million of our users will suddenly start using means of bypassing blocking will be quite unpredictable,” he noted.

What claims to YouTube and Twitter appeared before

Roskomnadzor has previously accused foreign services Twitter and YouTube of censorship. So, on Tuesday, November 17, the department sent a letter to Google demanding to lift the restrictions imposed against TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov’s “Soloviev LIVE” channel on YouTube.

According to the department, Solovyov’s releases were not included in the “Trending” section of the video hosting service, “although this previously happened regularly.”

“This situation can be regarded as an attempt by the YouTube administration to limit the distribution of materials by a popular Russian author and prevent the growth of his audience,” Roskomnadzor said.

Soloviev himself has repeatedly complained about not falling into YouTube trends on his channel. He also claimed that his subscribers did not receive broadcast notifications on his channel.

YouTube previously labeled an RT documentary about protests in the US as “inappropriate and offensive.” Roskomnadzor responded to this by recommending that Russian media use Russian video hosting platforms instead of YouTube.

Roskomnadzor also contacted Google in September of this year: a warning appeared on the hosting before watching the film “Beslan” by VGTRK TV presenter Alexander Rogatkin, stating that the film may not be suitable for part of the audience.

“This content has been determined by the YouTube community to contain material that may be disturbing or shocking to some users,” the warning reads. To date, Rogatkin’s film has collected almost 252 thousand views.

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For comparison, Yuri Dud’s film about the tragedy in Beslan, which many pro-government journalists (including Solovyov) criticized for “justifying terrorism,” collected more than 22 million views.

“YouTube is trying to limit the Russian media, Russian authors who take a patriotic and neutral position, an objective position with all possible tools,” the Rossiya 24 TV channel quoted Alexander Malkevich, first deputy chairman of the media commission of the Public Chamber of Russia. — It limits them in so-called monetization, tries to do everything so that people who work honestly towards their country, towards its history, do not earn money. And at the same time, only those who spit on our country, memory, history, and solve problems of an ideological, anti-Russian nature can earn money.”

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