Translated material
Roskomnadzor threatened to block Buzzfeed
Roskomnadzor demanded that the American publication Buzzfeed remove an article about the battles in Grozny. Otherwise, the department threatened to block the entire resource. Roskomnadzor contacted the editors at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office, which saw in the material calls for participation in mass riots. It is unknown what exactly the Russian supervisory agency did not like.
As Buzzfeed notes, the material that did not suit the Prosecutor General’s Office included a video message from terrorists posted on YouTube. On Friday, December 5, YouTube removed the post, after which Buzzfeed also removed it. At the same time, the publication notes, it is not clear from the letter whether the Prosecutor General’s Office did not like the video recording or something else.
The article, published on Wednesday (and updated on Thursday), used eyewitness reports, social media posts and video [from the scene] to describe the fighting between Islamists and Russian security forces. (English.)
- On the night of December 4, militants attacked Grozny and captured two buildings. As a result of the shootings, 14 policemen were killed, including a relative of the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. More than 20 security forces were injured. On December 4, 10 militants were reported killed. On December 5, after the death of Kadyrov’s relative was reported, information appeared about 11 militants killed during the fighting.
- Members of the Caucasus Emirate group, banned in Russia, took responsibility for the attack on Grozny. The militants announced themselves in a video, which was posted on YouTube and then deleted from the service.
- Roskomnadzor carries out departmental orders to ban certain pages on the Internet. For example, it may require the removal of information about suicide, drugs, riots, and so on. The owners of the resource are given 24 hours to remove the material, after which providers are required to block pages in Russia. Due to imperfect technology, as a result, not only prohibited pages are blocked, but the entire site. A similar thing happened with YouTube, Vimeo, Wikipedia and other resources.