DISINFO: Google defends extremism and child pornography in Russia
SUMMARY
Child pornography, calls for suicide, drug promotion, calls for illegal actions are some of the content that Google disseminates, in addition to other extremist and destructive content, according to Russia's media regulator Roskomnadzor, which could take action to slow down the connection to the company's services.
Roskomnadzor has again stated that Google is reluctant to remove content prohibited by Russian law. Thus, YouTube has not removed some 5,000 prohibited content, including 3,500 materials with calls for extremism, and it still does not block between 20% and 30% of links to prohibited content in Russia, including websites of terrorist organisations, child pornography resources and virtual drug stores. Roskomnadzor had already sent more than 26,000 notifications to the Google administration about the need to eliminate the illegal information.
Meanwhile, Google seems to be guided by the principle that the best defence is attack, as it has sued Roskomnadzor for removing links that led to prohibited content, that, among other things, incited minors to participate in the illegal protests of last January. Google defends to continue spreading what it wants. Child pornography included? But above all, it defends its immunity and impunity before national legislation, its right to impose its agenda throughout the world, among other objectives.
RESPONSE
This disinformation story appeared in a context in which Russia is increasingly pressuring several US tech companies, including Google, Twitter and Facebook, to fall in line with Kremlin internet crackdown orders or risk restrictions inside the country, as The New York Times reported on 26 May 2021. Warnings to these tech companies have been sent at least weekly since services from Facebook, Twitter and Google were used as tools for anti-Kremlin protests in January, according to the NYT article. The purpose of this online crackdown is to limit the spread of anti-government content, for which Twitter has been already fined and Google and YouTube could be punished soon too, for not removing content allegedly encouraging minors to join “unauthorised” protests in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny. This is the sort of content that Google has refused to remove, according to explanations provided in its own transparency report, and not “child pornography”, “calls for suicide” or “drug promotion” as claimed.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives in our database, such as claims that Twitter, Facebook and Google are meddling in US elections and Russia, that Google and Facebook manipulate information to destroy Russia, or that CIA-influenced Facebook introduced the mechanism of preventive censorship of Sputnik.