YouTube began to block opposition content, Gazprom left shareholders without dividends and the court in the case of Berkovich

YouTube for the first time in history began to block opposition content at the request of Roskomnadzor. So far, the locks affected only individual videos of small channels, but this is a precedent-and the next to block the 100,000th channel has already notified the human rights organization “OVD-Info”. In all cases, it was about rollers dedicated to evasion from the call. There are no explanations for changes in the policy of the platform yet. But in the past, Google has a rich experience in attempts to cooperate with authoritarian regimes trying to censor information on the Internet.

• YouTube at the request of Roskomnadzor blocked three videos on the territory of Russia about the evasion of the call, learned the publication “Agency”, which familiarized with notifications about blocking sent by the owners of the channels. At the request of Roskomnadzor, the video hosting blocked the videos of projects “Watch in Volgograd” (29 thousand subscribers) and the “School of Dimbers” (21 thousand subscribers), as well as an independent regional media, whose name “agency” does not disclose. All blocked videos in one way or another concerned the issue of evasion or mobilization.
• In fact, YouTube began to block the videos of human rights activists back in March. For example, the blocking of its first video “School of Drawing Man” reported on March 18. A number of channels were faced with YouTube restrictions - including Roskomsvoboda, they told The Bell in the organization
• In early May, the major human rights organization “OVD-Info” received a notice from YouTube that its channel “How is it now?” (99 thousand subscribers) will be blocked if it does not “eliminate violations” identified by Roskomnadzor. “The channel is still available, we have consultations with YouTube and Google and try to explain that the requirement to block our channel is a manifestation of political censorship, which the platform should not satisfy,” said Dmitry Anisimov, a Bell spokesman for the OVD-Info. However, so far they have not received any answer from YouTube to the organization.
• Judging by the experience of the founder of the “School of the Distribution” by Alexei Tabalov, the answer will be disappointing: in response to his appeal, which explained that the content of the video does not violate either YouTube rules, nor the laws of the Russian Federation, the platform simply sent the official appeal of Roskomnadzor and refused to unlock the video.
• YouTube did not previously block opposition content at the request of the Russian authorities, an expert on cybersecurity told the agency. The service was periodically engaged in strange selective locks - for example, was removed by Artemia Lebedev or Dmitry Puchkov (Goblin) channels. But there were no mass blocking of the content of foreign agents, human rights activists and independent media. Moreover, Roskomnadzor has repeatedly fined Google for failure of prohibited content with YouTube. In March 2023, the total amount of fines appointed by the court reached 28.3 billion rubles, of which 8.7 billion was forcibly collected by bailiffs. In October 2023, the Russian “daughter” of Google LLC was declared bankrupt.
• The maternal Google, however, was blocked by another content at the request of the Russian authorities: as the journalist Andrei Zakharov (recognized as an ino -agent) notes , Google satisfies half of all requests from Roskomnadzor (and there were more than 30 thousand in 2023), most of them concerned the content on YouTube. But about which content is blocked, almost nothing is known.
• The explanation may be simple: Google is a huge company in which there are different compliance departments, the chief lawyer of Roskomsvoboda Sarkis Darbinyan (recognized as an ino -agent) argues. “The position“ ourselves left and took the employees so as not to fall under the same Russian laws, but we will fulfill the others ”, it seems two -faced. But I think that this is nothing more than the Bigtech device, where the right hand does not know what the left does, ”the human rights activist argues.
• But in the practice of Google there were known cases when the company consciously agreed to help authoritarian regimes with censorship. Until 2010, Google censored his Chinese version and stopped doing this only when he decided to completely leave China because of a hacker attack organized by Beijing. But a few years later, the company tried to return to the Chinese market with a search application, observing all censorship restrictions - and only after a huge scandal was forced to suspend , and then close the project.

What am I to me?

YouTube is the largest non -blocking non -certificate media that remains in Russia, which allows independent media and activists to convey information to people. The Russian authorities are working on creating your own YouTube replacement, but so far it seems that they have not advanced very far.

MONEY

Gazprom will refuse to pay dividends for 2023

The company's company was very predictable afterthe catastrophic annual results of the company in IFRS, and still the stage - the government instructed the Board of Directors of Gazprom to prepare the directive of the refusal of dividends for 2023.

This is the official end of the short era of unprecedented generosity - the company's dividend policy adopted in 2019 indicated to pay shareholders at least 50% of net profit. Once this policy, however, had already failed-in 2022 the government decided to shut up a hole in the budget that appeared from the Gazprom dividend money, and at the end of 2021, the shareholders remained with nothing. But already in 2022, the company paid record in history dividends in the amount of 1.2 trillion rubles. 50.23% of Gazprom shares belongs to the state, but it has 470 thousand private shareholders.

According to the results of 2023, Gazprom received the first year after a quarter century a annual loss due to a collapsible reduction in gas revenues to Europe. This gas can be redirected only to China, but for this it is necessary to obtain its approval for the construction of the Siberian Power - 2 gas pipeline. Last week, Vladimir Putin once again did not bring any news from Beijing on this score.

CATASTROPHE

Why fell a helicopter of President Iran

The cause of the disaster, which died, Iran President Ebrahim Raisisi was the technical malfunction of the helicopter, the IRNA news agency said . The agency did not specify the specific nature of the problem. The White House also does not see signs of possible foreign intervention, the NBC source said . In Iran, they have already decided on the date of the election of the new president - they will be held on July 28.

Repression

The court began in the case of Berkovich

In Moscow, court hearings began on the merits of one of the most high -profile political cases - director Evgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, accused of justifying terrorism for staging the play “Finist Yasny Falcon”. It talked about women who left for Syria and married Islamists from ISIS. The process is in the Moscow 2nd Western District Military Court-cases of terrorist articles in Russia are considered in military courts. "Mediazona" leads a detailed online .

Signals

Mus equalized Netanyahu and Hamas

The International Criminal Court requested the arrest of the leaders of Hamas, on the one hand, and the political leadership of Israel, on the other. Both of them are accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. On the part of Hamas, these are the combat and political leaders of the organization Mohammed al-Deef (al-Masri) and Ismail Hani, as well as the organizer of the attack on October 7, 2023 Yahya Sryvar. On the Israeli side - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Galland.

Netanyahu called what was happening a scandal and stated that the Musa decision would not stop Israel. The decision of the prosecutor was also criticized by the head of the Foreign Ministry of Israel Katz, Israeli President Yitzhak Duke, Minister of Military Cabinet Beni Ganz and other Israeli politicians. The decision of the chief prosecutor of the Mus Karim Khan also outraged US President Joe Biden.

The Prosecutor General requires 1.4 billion rubles in the Yukos case

The Prosecutor General’s Office demanded to seize 986 million rubles and $ 1.8 million, in the bank accounts of former co -owners of Yukos Mikhail Khodorkovsky (recognized as an ino -agent) and Platon Lebedev. According to sources of Interfax agencies, TASS and RIA Novosti, funds are stored on accounts opened at the Trust bank. The Prosecutor General’s Office demands to turn them to the state’s income “in connection with the failure of damage” in the “Yukos case”. Although both businessmen received the right to rehabilitation and material compensation (the ECHR admitted that their criminal prosecution was politically motivated, and the rights to a fair trial were violated), the Russian Supreme Court refused to cancel the sentence of damage.