YouTube blocked the story of “Rain”, in which a debate participant demanded the release of Navalny

At the request of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, YouTube blocked the plot of Dozhd with a fragment of the pre-election debate, during which the leader of the Russian Party of Freedom and Justice, Maxim Shevchenko, demanded the release of Alexei Navalny. This was announced on the evening of September 6 by the publication itself.

The state-owned company, which includes federal TV channels Rossiya 1 and Rossiya 24, has used the Content ID system built into YouTube — it allows copyright holders to identify and manage their content on the platform, including blocking the entire video for viewing. The All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company told YouTube that it has exclusive rights to the fragment of the debate presented in the Dozhd story, and the platform hid the entire video of the publication.

The debate with Shevchenko was broadcast live on Rossiya 24 on the evening of August 30.

“Stop making domestic politics a way to influence Russian civil society, stop driving us into a dictatorship. Freedom for political prisoners, freedom for journalists. Release Alexei Navalny and everyone who is subjected to political repression,” the politician said during the debate.

At a debate held on the same channel on September 6, Maxim Shevchenko announced that the YouTube channel had blocked his previous speech, where he mentioned Navalny. As SOTA noted that day, segments of the August 30 debate had indeed disappeared from some of the broadcaster's YouTube channels. Dozhd added that, at the request of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, videos of other users of the platform with the same fragment of the debate were blocked.

On Dozhd, they said that they had appealed the blocking, since the channel used this video as part of an informational quotation. “However, it was not possible to achieve a quick unblocking of the story: according to the rules of video hosting, the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company has the right to consider such requests within 30 days and leave the story blocked until the elections,” the publication added.