Moscow. April 24. INTERFAX.RU – Roskomnadzor (RKN) records regular censorship by the YouTube administration in relation to content posted in the accounts of Russian media, under the pretext of its inconsistency with the age category, Interfax was told in the press service of the department.
“Films that were broadcast on Russian federal channels and do not contain age restrictions, according to the YouTube administration, can only be accessed by adult viewers. Many videos are broadcast after authorization on video hosting or additional consent to view content for adults,” RKN said in response at the request of the agency.
They believe that videos are being blocked by YouTube, “which convey to the viewers of the video hosting a position that differs from the position adopted in the West.”
“Videos that tell the truth about the historical contribution of Russia to the victory over fascism, about the tragic events in Beslan are blocked under far-fetched pretexts. An accidental mistake explained to YouTube the blocking of the address of the President of Russia in the official NTV account,” the department said.
According to RKN, in 2020 YouTube restricted access to Russian media accounts nine times and three times to their materials, and in four months of 2021 three accounts and five materials from Russian media were blocked. The restrictions also affected the official accounts of NTV, Rossiya 24, TVTs, Russia Today, Sputnik.
“Also, YouTube imposed restrictions on videos containing the national anthem of the Russian Federation, explaining their actions by violation of copyrights, which allegedly belong to foreign copyright holders,” the RKN recalled.
The department added that since the beginning of 2020, they have sent 29 letters to the video hosting administration demanding to lift restrictions on Russian media (seven of them are repeated requests), and most of them remained unanswered.
In addition, Roskomnadzor claims that YouTube has not removed almost 6 thousand materials with child pornography, calls for extremism, narcotic and suicidal content, and other socially dangerous information from more than 71 thousand identified by the department since 2012.
They recalled that earlier, for not removing from the search results of Internet resources with prohibited information, Google was fined three times – by 700 thousand rubles, by 1.5 million rubles. and 3 million rubles.
Earlier in an interview with the Kommesrant newspaper, YouTube director for relations with the authorities in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, Marco Pancini, said that video hosting does not specifically restrict access to materials from Russian media, in particular the RT channel, which recently complained about the pessimization of its content, but also to domestic films, such as the picture “Beslan” by Alexander Rogatkin. “For videos to hit 'featured' or 'trending', he said,” they must meet objective criteria, “and YouTube's algorithms take user preferences into account, so RT competes for user views just like other international media companies.
“There is no bias or censorship from YouTube. We take these issues seriously. We respect and value cultural-historical content and, if the video has it, we take it into account. But we also have a responsibility to a young audience. (. ..) We carefully study such videos and at the beginning of the video we put a warning about shots that may shock some viewers. “- said Pancini, adding that” this is how YouTube works all over the world. “
