Question: How would you comment on YouTube’s moves to block the channels run by Russian content creators?

Maria Zakharova: We have been repeatedly raising this issue for a long time. First of all, I would like to remind you that in January 2021, the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation made a statement on flagrant violations of freedom of speech by global US internet companies, giving a succinct assessment of political censorship and monopoly control over the internet exercised by the United States. That statement was brought to the attention of all leading international organisations that advocate for the principle of free access to information. Unfortunately, it went unheard, as did the Russian senators’ proposal to adopt an international convention regulating the IT giants’ activities.

As a follow-up on the same issue, the Russian Foreign Ministry adopted a statement regarding the activities of US internet monopolies, calling on the international community to mobilise efforts to develop requirements for a transparent content moderation policy on social media platforms, which should be consolidated and clearly spelled out in international documents, and highlighting the need for substantive joint work within relevant international organisations.

In addition, practical steps had to be taken to protect the rights and legitimate interests of Russian citizens in this domain. The most important step in creating a transparent and effective mechanism for interaction and feedback between the state and large internet companies was the data localisation law adopted in July 2021 (Federal Law On the Activities of Foreign Persons on the Internet Information and Telecommunication Network in the Territory of the Russian Federation). That law established clear rules for regulating the internet, ruling out situations where digital companies operating in the Russian market and making profit from catering to Russian citizens would be able to violate their rights and interests with impunity or ignore the laws of the Russian Federation.

Extensive work is underway to look into this multifaceted problem and draw conclusions, including in the expert community, primarily with a view to taking practical steps, both at the legislative level and in terms of developing technological solutions. In particular, this work is facilitated by the annual Safe Internet Forum. Another example was the session on Digital Dictatorship vs. Digital Sovereignty: Problems, Risks and Opportunities that the Foreign Ministry hosted as part of SPIEF-2023.

We should not forget about Washington’s international commitments in this area. In this regard, we would like to recall the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 19), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 19), the Charter of Paris for a New Europe (the Human Dimension section), the Final Act of the CSCE (Article 2, Information, of the section on Cooperation in Humanitarian and Other Fields). All these documents have been signed by the United States, and none of them calls for censorship; on the contrary, they underscore the need to respect free access to information.

Nevertheless, arbitrary governance and political censorship remain the norm for the Washington-controlled YouTube management, which is conducting a systematic cleansing of the information landscape. Initially targeting Russian federal and regional media channels, YouTube later moved to blocking the accounts of state authorities and personal channels run by well-known public figures and journalists.

In 2022, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s official YouTube channel twice received groundless warnings from the platform administration. Later, dozens of videos on the ministry’s channel were blocked under completely far-fetched pretexts, including speeches and interviews by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, such as his bilateral meetings with his Western partners, as well as briefings by Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. In other words, YouTube has carried out acts of direct censorship, hindering the free dissemination of, and access to information, thereby violating the rights of hundreds of thousands of our subscribers.

Repressions by YouTube also affected Russian foreign missions. One of the most egregious cases involved 29 posts on the official channel of the Russian Embassy in London, which were deleted without warning on August 15, 2022, in a crude attempt to limit Russian foreign missions’ information work and deprive the global audience of reliable sources of information.

Therefore, we see many weighty reasons for taking measures against the YouTube video hosting platform. In view of the numerous and systematic violations of Russian laws, and emphatic disregard for the Russian audience and its interests, the regulatory bodies of our state reserve the right to use the appropriate legal tools.