FEDERAL SERVICE FOR SUPERVISION OF COMMUNICATIONS, INFORMATION, TECHNOLOGY AND MASS MEDIA MIGHT SLOW DOWN THE INTERNET TRAFFIC OF YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

Several deputies of the State Duma and Senator Alexei Pushkov introduced an interesting draft law to the lower house. It gives the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications the right to block those Internet resources that have been censoring domestic media outlets.

It is assumed that the regulator will be able to slow down the traffic of platforms that allow censorship. The list of "intruders" includes the largest resources, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

One of the authors of the document, the deputy Anton Gorelkin, told TASS that he is opposed to Internet blocking, but "the state must have a tough tool for malicious violators."

For platforms that apply censorship to Russian media, fines will appear as well - up to 3 million rubles. The amendments will be added to the Administrative Code.

It is worth noting that, according to the bill, the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications will have the rights to both partially and completely restrict access to resources. Earlier, the department has already noted that foreign Internet companies are blocking access to materials of a number of domestic media outlets, including Russia 1, Sputnik and others.

We should note that the day before, a letter was sent to Google from the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications, demanding that the restrictions should be lifted from the YouTube channel of journalist Vladimir Solovyov. The report says that his materials have ceased to fall "in trends", and the department regards this as "an attempt to prevent the growth of the audience of a popular Russian author."