Russia creating blacklist of YouTube bloggers in hopes of forcing them to switch to Russian media platforms

Russia’s Civic Chamber is creating a blacklist of Russian bloggers who release content on YouTube instead of on Russian social media networks, according to Alexander Malkevich, a member of the Civic Chamber’s Commission for the Development of Information Society, Media, and Mass Communications, reports TASS.

“The Civic Chamber is now starting to work on a blacklist of bloggers posting on the platform. We’ll publish it because these people, who knowingly don’t work on Russian social media networks, position themselves as Russian bloggers,” said Malkevich.

According to Malkevich, this list will be one of the stages in a program aimed at incentivizing bloggers to switch to Russian social media networks. “In the future, it should become the basis for the development and implementation of measures regarding content creators who ignore our platforms. Legislators must have their say here, because if you don’t want to switch to our platforms, it means you want to hide your income, either out of stupidity, out of habit, or because you’re engaging in enemy activities,” TASS cites the Civic Chamber member as saying.

Malkevich called YouTube “an effective informational weapon of the West” with billions of viewers who aren’t able to find “objectivity.” He added that children end up influenced by bloggers who promote an “anti-Russian agenda” and “destructive values” on the platform. He said that the first part of the blacklist will focus on bloggers whose audience primarily consists of children.