Navalny loses his lawsuit against Russia's federal censor

As expected, the Moscow Tagansky court has rejected Alexey Navalny’s lawsuit against Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal censor. The opposition politician tried to sue Roskomnadzor for enforcing an injunction issued by a court in Ust-Labinsky, where oligarch Oleg Deripaska is suing the woman who uploaded footage of him meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko aboard a yacht in August 2016, possibly to discuss Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election.

Navalny argued that the court’s injunction against the footage (which Deripaska says violates his privacy) is illegal because he wasn’t granted standing in the case.

Who’s complied with the censor, so far? Who’s fighting it? 

On February 15, Roskomnadzor ordered Russian ISPs to start blocking access to Navalny.com on the grounds that the website refuses to delete photos and videos blacklisted by a court order in Deripaska’s lawsuit against a self-described escort who calls herself “Nastya Rybka” (whose real name is Anastasia Vashukevich). Five media outlets, as well as Instagram, complied with Roskomnadzor’s takedown orders.

At the time of this writing, Navalny’s February 8 investigative report about Deripaska and Prikhodko has more than 5.9 million views on YouTube. On Tuesday, February 20, Roskomnadzor said it won’t block YouTube, even though the video-hosting network has refused, so far, to delete Alexey Navalny’s investigative report.

Google reportedly wants to wait for a formal verdict in Ust-Labinsky. When Deripaska presumably wins the case, YouTube might opt to block Navalny’s video for users in Russia, without deleting the video outright.