The State Duma of Russia approved in the first reading a bill on blocking Internet resources “for censorship of Russian media.”

317 deputies voted for the document, 38 were against. The Communist Party and the Liberal Democratic Party did not support the initiative.

The bill states that a decision to block can be made if the platform restricts access to socially important information, in particular, on the grounds of nationality, language, as well as through sanctions of foreign states against Russia or its citizens. According to Russian deputies, the social networks Facebook and Twitter, as well as the video service YouTube, are most often censored.

One of the authors of the bill, a member of the government faction “United Russia” Alexander Hinstein during his speech in the Duma said that in recent months revealed more than 20 cases of “censorship of Russian media.” In particular, YouTube blocked the account of the TV channel “Constantinople”.

Earlier, the social networks YouTube, Facebook and Twitter criticized Roskomnadzor for applying the general rules of content moderation to Russian publications. In particular, the department called the age restrictions of YouTube for the film of Russia-1 TV channel about the seizure of a school in Beslan censored. Roskomnadzor has repeatedly demanded that Facebook, Google and Twitter stop labeling Russian state media.

(c)RADIO SVOBODA 2020