CrimeaPRESS reports:
Roskomnadzor’s decision to contact Google’s CEO regarding lifting the block on Russian YouTube channels was absolutely logical, said Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications.
In the last four years alone, YouTube has blocked more than 200 accounts of Russian media outlets, government agencies, and public figures. Therefore, Roskomnadzor did the right thing by demanding that Google CEO lift the block on Russian YouTube channels, said Anton Nemkin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology, and Communications.
Roskomnadzor sent a demand to Google LLC CEO Sundar Pichai to unblock more than 200 YouTube accounts of Russian media outlets, federal government agencies, enterprises and sports clubs, as well as various public, political and musical figures who speak out in support of the Russian Federation and the actions of the authorities.
Since 2020, the video hosting service has applied restrictive measures to 207 domestic resources, 83 of them in 2024. The sanctions included the RT and RBC channels, the accounts of musical performers Shaman, Oleg Gazmanov, Yulia Chicherina, writer Zakhar Prilepin, designer and blogger Artemy Lebedev, and others.
As the department emphasized, the restrictive measures fundamentally violate the key principles of free dissemination of information and unimpeded access to it. «Such actions by the video hosting service are unacceptable, this is an act of censorship. YouTube adheres to an uncompromisingly Russophobic policy. Preference is always given to adherents of pro-Western ideals, and the accounts of Russian bloggers and journalists are blocked without explanation. The victims are not only those who voice their position on various political issues, but also people who, in principle, speak well of Russia— Roskomnadzor said in a statement.
According to Nemkin, YouTube’s moderation system works perfectly only when something needs to be censored, and recently it has been content related to Russia. YouTube stubbornly refuses to listen to the calls of regulators and stop — in contrast to the blocked Russian resources, more than 60 thousand prohibited materials are still available there, which contain: fakes about the SVO, extremist materials, propaganda of non-traditional sexual preferences, content about involving minors in committing illegal acts.
Unlike outright fakes and other illegal content, harmless videos featuring Russian authors are deleted immediately, even if the blogger has no connection to politics. This is outright Russophobia. Therefore, Roskomnadzor did the right thing by demanding that Google CEO unblock Russian YouTube accounts. This is an absolutely logical decision, we will observe the reaction— he said.
As the deputy emphasized, today in Russia there are already worthy platforms that can become a replacement for the American video hosting. And users should not delay in switching to them, since YouTube, apparently, is not going to slow down the pace of blocking.
YouTube has a huge monthly audience in Russia – more than 90 million people. If we imagine that all these users will switch exclusively to Russian platforms, then their traffic will grow, of course, significantly – and they, by the way, are ready for this from a technological point of view. At the same time, the more citizens use domestic resources and give feedback to developers, the faster we will be able to create such platforms that will be much better in functionality than foreign analogues. Support for domestic solutions by the population will stimulate our product to develop and become even better in order to finally oust from the market such platforms that, in pursuit of their own interests, forget about the principles of freedom of speech and about caring for users— Nemkin concluded.
source: press service of the State Duma deputy Anton Nemkin
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