Russia threatens to ban Google, Twitter and Facebook over extremist content

Found on The Guardian on Friday, 22 May 2015
Browse Censorship

The agency’s deputy director, Maksim Ksenzov, had issued a warning to the three companies on 6 May, telling them they were in violation of the bloggers law because they had not provided requested data on the number of daily visitors to several users’ pages, as well as information allowing the authorities to identify the owners of accounts with more than 3,000 daily visitors.

Since the start of President Vladimir Putin’s third term in 2012, the government has launched a crackdown on the internet in Russia, passing laws that give state supervisory bodies wide-ranging powers to to regulate and block websites.

Several news sites critical of the Kremlin have been blocked in Russia, including Grani.ru, EJ.ru and Kasparov.ru, which was founded by self-exiled chess grandmaster and activist Garry Kasparov.

Soo either Google, Twitter and Facebook give in and reveal the identities of critics, most likely dooming them to jailtime, or they stand up for free speech and deal with a block which would only be temporary anyway.