– Not so long ago, a law was signed increasing criminal liability for counterfeit products. From your point of view, is it clearly stated what the fake is in it?
— There is no limit to perfection, I agree that the definition can be written more clearly, but the best is the enemy of the good. I will note the most important thing – anti-counterfeiting legislation has solved its main task – it has become a serious deterrent to the spread of all kinds of panic rumors and frankly provocative information waves. Let me remind you that anti-fraud legislation emerged in 2019 but improved significantly at the height of the pandemic. Mass deaths, morgues full of unidentified corpses, etc. A mechanism had to be introduced that could stop the spreading of disturbing rumors about him.
– Can this law be repealed after the completion of the special military operation?
– I would support such an approach, but when everything is finished we will be able to answer this question. However, with the end of the special military operation, the end of the ongoing economic and information war against Russia seems unlikely.
– In early March, Facebook was blocked in Russia due to online censorship (the company that owns Meta was considered an extremist organization), after a while Meta was recognized as an extremist organization (known as an extremist organization) and Instagram was already blocked (Meta The company that owns was considered an extremist organization). ). Why did this happen?
– Meta has taken an openly anti-Russian stance in the information war against our country. Starting with censoring our media (i.e., erasing an offensive Russian point of view in the information space) and ending with inaction regarding the subversive content in the Russian segment, while also promoting direct calls for violence against the Russians. Let me remind you that all this is the official position of the American company, expressed at the highest level of management. In such a situation, the Russian authorities did not and did not have the right to remain inactive.
— Will platforms blocked in Russia be unblocked?
— With Meta today, it’s hard to say what the way back might be. There is already a court order regarding the company’s recognition as an extremist. It can only be overturned by court order. And frankly only with the participation of the initiator, namely the Attorney General.
As for other platforms, everything here will primarily depend on their actions. The main requirement for them to be realistic and applicable is compliance with the legislation of the Russian Federation. However, so far, we do not see any desire for constructive cooperation on behalf of foreign technology companies. Let’s see what happened with the same Meta – at the trial they said that they were completely unfounded, without providing any evidence, documents, also against calls for destruction, violence against people by nationality. But at the same time, changes to its own rules earlier were not canceled.
What is going on with YouTube today, which is doing everything to leave the Russian authorities no choice but technical measures? Google is gradually taking new, frankly provocative actions against all incentives and persuasions to comply with the simple requirements of our legislation. The last example is the blocking of Duma TV, the official parliamentary television set up by the State Duma.
Is YouTube management somehow responding to messages or just ignoring them?
– As there is no official Google office in Russia, friends from Roskomnadzor are trying to communicate with the overseas party unilaterally, as I understand it. But the question is not even in words, but in actions. The blocking continues, previously made decisions are not revoked, the ban on monetization for Russian bloggers is in effect.
– Will YouTube be blocked?
— Since I do not agree with this decision, I cannot answer the question. I have expressed my position more than once – I consider blocking YouTube to be an undesirable measure. And I really hope that Google still complies with the legal requirements of the Russian side.
Blocking is the most extreme emergency measure. There are others before it, also quite unpleasant, but not so radical. For example, traffic slowdown. And for sources like YouTube where the main content is audiovisual, traffic slowdown is of course a rather painful limitation.
– So you think we’re going to slow down YouTube traffic first?
– If Russia has no other choice (and the last Chinese warning cannot be the thousandth in a row), the restrictions laid down in the current legislation may apply. Among them are technical measures – slowdown or blocking. I do not undertake to guess what particular decision might be made.
Will services like Google Docs continue to work in Russia?
“If there are no questions about its activities in terms of the application of Russian legislation, there is no reason to impose any sanctions or restrictions. This does not negate the fact that Google may, on its own initiative, stop the operation of its services in Russia and find some justification for this (as you know, there are already examples). If such a situation arises, today in Russia there are similar products that can replace Google Docs.
– From your perspective, what are the expectations for local Internet platforms and services? What are you using yourself?
– If we are talking about search engines, then if it is about mail, then I use Yandex, then Mail.ru, if it is social networks, I use VKontakte and Telegram messenger. We are definitely in competition with foreign companies in some areas – this applies to Yandex and its entire ecosystem. In some areas, unfortunately, we are objectively lagging behind – this is especially true for video hosting. And in the same case with YouTube, the difficulty is that there is no completely adequate substitute for it today. Although we are currently seeing accelerated development in Rutube. Unfortunately, a huge chunk of time was missed, because initially, 10-12 years ago, Rutube and YouTube appeared in Russia almost simultaneously. Moreover, our service was the leader in popularity, but they did not engage for long. Now the number of users of domestic video hosting is growing, and the number of users of the new Yappy resource is also growing sharply – this is another domestic product, a vertical video service. In fact, this is an analogue of TikTok.
Source: Gazeta
