Yandex stands up to Russia's federal censor, telling Roskomnadzor that it doesn't have to delete a damned thing

“Yandex Zen,” a “personal recommendations service” created by Yandex with tens of millions of users, has refused to block a channel operated by Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s MBKh Media.

“The law doesn’t require [online] services to participate in the blocking process. We have to notify the owner of the channel, and that’s what we’ve done. We see no grounds for other actions on our part,” Yandex said in a press statement.

On February 22, Russia’s federal censor threatened to block Yandex Zen for refusing to delete all materials shared by MBKh Media, which could result in some Russian Internet service providers blocking all Yandex Web services.

On February 21, the Russian government ordered Internet Service Providers to start blocking MBKh Media on the grounds that it represents a blacklisted “undesirable organization”: the Open Russia Civic Movement, which Khodorkovsky registered in Britain.