Roskomnadzor said it could slow down YouTube in Russia

As Interfax reports with reference to the statement of the deputy head of the department Vadim Subbotin, Roskomnadzor now has "all the technical capabilities for this kind of technological impact".

"But now we are at the stage of applying administrative measures, we are primarily considering the option of administrative coercion," the news agency quotes Subbotin as saying.

The reason for the application of measures of influence against the administration of the service was the fact that Facebook and YouTube, according to the results of the first nine months of this year, more often than other social networks ignored the requirement of Roskomnadzor to remove information prohibited in the Russian Federation.

According to the agency's estimates, while social networks voluntarily remove forbidden content related to the distribution of child pornography, the promotion of drugs and suicide, Facebook refused to remove 19% of forbidden messages, and YouTube - 11%.

Earlier this year, for refusing to remove forbidden content, RKN already slowed down Twitter on half of PCs and 100% of mobile devices. After that, Twitter removed 91% of the prohibited content, and RKN removed the speed limit on desktop computers, leaving the slowdown on mobile devices.

Roskomnadzor's statement about its readiness to block YouTube video hosting in Russia in response to the removal of two German RT YouTube channels has caused widespread discussion on the Web. As political analyst Vladimir Shapovalov told Sputnik radio, "There is a limit to everything, and sooner or later this (blocking of YouTube) may happen".

He noted that, on the whole, Russia is very careful and tolerant of Western resources, in contrast to Western countries, which often engage in this kind of blocking.

“Therefore, I think that in Russia they will find some other way without turning off YouTube, especially since it is really popular among Russians”, - concluded Vladimir Shapovalov.

Earlier on September 29, it became known that Roskomnadzor had sent a letter to the Google leadership demanding that all restrictions be removed from the YouTube channels RT DE and Der Fehlende Part, owned by the Russian media Russia Today, as soon as possible. A day earlier, both channels with a total audience of 600,000 users were permanently deleted from the video hosting service.

Roskomnadzor called the incident an "act of censorship" and threatened to block YouTube in Russia in response.