Medvedev commented on Durov’s emigration and censorship on VKontakte

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said he sees no signs of censorship on the VKontakte social network. Medvedev spoke about this in an interview with Bloomberg, a transcript of which appeared on the official website of the Russian government on May 20.

According to the prime minister, in terms of its openness, VKontakte can easily be compared with another social network - Facebook. The only thing the site needs to strive for is to improve the internal culture of communication between users. However, its low level, as Medvedev noted, is a common problem both for VKontakte and Facebook, and for a number of other media resources.

This is an absolutely open area, you speak excellent Russian, you can climb in and see what is there. There is no censorship there, everything is absolutely the same as, for example, on Facebook, because these are comparable resources. Dmitry Medvedev

Commenting on the departure of VKontakte CEO Pavel Durov, Dmitry Medvedev said that, despite the change in the head of the company, the social network he founded “existed and will exist.”

The prime minister called Pavel Durov himself a talented young man who has many illusions.

He is a talented guy, but like all talented people, he has many illusions. As far as I know, he had a fight with the shareholders and with his business colleagues, as a result he sold his stake and, as is very often customary, citing certain political circumstances, decided to take up his own project. It's his decision. Dmitry Medvedev

At the same time, Medvedev emphasized that it is difficult for him to judge the true motives of Durov’s behavior, since he saw him only “once in his life.”

The Prime Minister separately touched upon the issue that the Internet was initially created as a “CIA project.” In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the involvement of American intelligence services in the creation and further development of the worldwide network .

According to Medvedev, in this area everything is far from being as clear as the head of the Russian state previously stated.

The Internet, indeed, arose, as we know, as a result of the work of near-defense structures, but in this case not the CIA, but, as far as I know, DARPA. Therefore, at first this network really had defense significance. But then the global network - what is called the World Wide Web - became a universal phenomenon and united a huge number of people. Dmitry Medvedev

Medvedev noted that he is not inclined to idealize the Internet in one way or another, but believes that today there is nothing on the planet that unites and enables communication between everyone and everyone. It is precisely this function of the Internet that should be valued, first of all, the Prime Minister concluded.

Finally, Dmitry Medvedev commented on the statement made in mid-May by one of the Roskomnadzor officials about the “inevitable closure” of Facebook and Twitter in Russia. The prime minister called the words of the deputy head of the supervisory agency Maxim Ksenzov about the future blocking of social networks “unsuccessful.”

He probably should have, as I said, thought better before talking about it. A huge number, millions of our people use these social networks. I use them myself, I think it’s good and useful. Dmitry Medvedev

On the other hand, Medvedev immediately made a reservation, emphasizing that all sites working with users from Russia must comply with Russian laws.

#Pavel_Durov #VKontakte #Dmitry_Medvedev #Bloomberg #Medvedev_about_Durov #censorship_in_VKontakte #Medvedev_commented_on_Durov_departure #Medvedev_compared_Facebook_and_VKontakte