Russia demands Google stop promoting YouTube videos about protests

‘Russia will reserve for itself the right to adequate response,’ media oversight agency warns

Russian special police forces detain a protester after a rally in Moscow urging fair elections (AFP/Getty)

Google must stop allowing YouTube users to post information about unsanctioned political protests or could face strict punishment, Russia’s media oversight agency has warned.

The company must crack down on videos about the protests, and stop allowing its users to notify people about them through the site’s push notifications and other tools, said The Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communication, or Roskomnadzor.

If Google and YouTube do not comply, Russia will have the right to retaliate, the organisation said.

Tens of thousands participated in a fourth consecutive weekend of protest about the exclusion of some independent and opposition candidates from the local election ballot, according to police and an organisation that counts attendance at public meetings.

Unlike demonstrations held the previous two weeks, when police made more than 1,000 arrests at each event, organisers had a permit for Saturday’s event. More than 200 people were reported arrested Saturday after some rally participants moved the protest from its sanctioned spot into the heart of the Russian capital.

Roskomnadzor said on Sunday it complained to Google in a letter about unspecified “structures” with YouTube channels using their accounts with the video sharing site to send push notifications about unsanctioned gatherings, “including those aimed at damaging federal and regional elections”.

Russia said it would see a failure to comply as “interference” in the state, and that it could therefore respond.

“In the event of Google not taking reactive measures, the Russian Federation will consider this as interference in the sovereign affairs of state, and also as hostile and hindering to the conduction of democratic elections in Russia, and will reserve for itself the right to adequate response,” Roskomnadzor said its letter stressed.

The determined opposition to some candidates being kept out of the Moscow election appears to have unsettled Russian authorities.

The sanctioned demonstration on Saturday attracted an estimated crowd of more than 50,000 people, the largest turnout at a Moscow protest in several years. Smaller rallies were held in several other cities.

Russia has adopted a series of measures to increase control over the internet in recent years.

A law enacted this year requires the flow of internet traffic to go through Russian servers, a move critics claim could lead to a firewall similar to a system in China that blocks political content and prevents Chinese users from using sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google.

Additional reporting by Associated Press