Leonid Volkov said that Google blocked advertising of September 9 rallies on YouTube

Google has removed paid ads from YouTube for anti-pension reform rallies that will take place across Russia on September 9. about this in his telegram channel Leonid Volkov, the head of Navalny's federal headquarters, spoke .

Volkov writes that the blocking took place at midnight two days before the September 9 rallies. “For the first time in history, Google complied with the illegal demands of the Russian authorities and took down our paid advertising of the 9/9 rally from YouTube. The rotation of most of our videos is blocked,” wrote Volkov.

An associate of Navalny suggested that Google reacted in this way to a letter from the Central Election Commission, in which it stated that the actions of Navalny's supporters were illegal on a "day of silence." On September 4, CEC representative Alexander Klyukin spoke about the letter at a meeting of the Federation Council Commission for the Protection of State Sovereignty. The letter was sent to the CEO of Google Inc. Larry Page.

“We are talking about the fact that Mr. Navalny, according to our information, acquires the company’s advertising tools from Google in order to post information on YouTube about the holding of an advertisement for a mass event on September 9, the day of voting, which is of a political nature,” Interfax quotes Klyukin as saying.

At the same time, Leonid Volkov stated that the advertisement was blocked regardless of whether elections are held in the region or not, and also on whether the rallies in this region are coordinated. Volokov cited Cheboksary as an example, where there will be no elections on September 9, and a rally against the pension reform was agreed upon, but the advertising of Navalny's supporters was blocked there anyway.

• In December 2017, YouTube temporarily blocked Alexei Navalny's video about the "voter strike". Later, the politician wrote on his website that the formal reason for blocking was "illegal hashtags."