Russia’s censorship agency threatens to throttle Google

The federal censorship agency, Roskonadzor (RKN), has given Google 24 hours to remove content prohibited in Russia. If the tech giant fails to comply, RKN isn’t ruling out the possibility of moving to throttle Google’s traffic, the state news agency TASS reported on May 24.

According to spokespeople for RKN, Google has failed to delete 20 to 30 percent of links leading to content prohibited in Russia. This reportedly includes links to websites of terrorist and extremist organizations, sites containing child pornography, and online drug retailers. 

In total, Roskomnadzor has sent more than 26,000 notices to Google ordering the tech giant to remove illegal information, reported the newswire Interfax, citing RKN. 

[Roskomnadzor] also said that Google is leading in terms of the amount of undeleted illegal content that directly harms Russian [Internet] users. 

Roskomnadzor began throttling Twitter traffic in Russia on March 10, after accusing the social network of failing to remove prohibited content. RKN threatened to block Twitter completely unless it complied with orders to take down banned information. 

In May, RKN announced that Twitter had removed 91 percent of the prohibited content. The agency promised not to block the social network, though it decided to continue slowing down its traffic on mobile devices. 

Roskomnadzor has also threatened to throttle or block other major social networks if they refuse to remove content prohibited in Russia. 

The Russian authorities have fined Google repeatedly for failing to remove links to banned websites. On May 24, the tech giant filed a lawsuit against Roskomnadzor over the agency’s request that Google block links on YouTube to videos calling for protests in support of jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny.