Russia may block access to YouTube and Instagram after billionaire Oleg Deripaska won a court injunction against videos and photographs that showed him and Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko relaxing on a yacht with a woman described as an escort.
As reported by Bloomberg, the Russian court has ordered the removal of 14 Instagram posts and seven YouTube videos that breached his right to privacy, according to a spokeswoman for Deripaska’s Basic Element company.
Deripaska is seeking removal of only the 14 Instagram posts and seven YouTube videos, and not to block access to the two services entirely, the spokeswoman for Basic Element said in an email. However, unless they comply with the order and remove the material, YouTube and Instagram may be blocked in Russia as early as Wednesday, according to the Internet regulator Roskomnadzor, cited by business daily Vedomosti.
Anti-Kremlin campaigner Alexey Navalny said the order also threatens to block his website after he published an online film alleging that the videos and photographs posted by the woman, who calls herself Nastya Rybka, showed evidence of a corrupt relationship between Deripaska and Prikhodko.
On February 12, NavalnyLive producer Oksana Baulina revealed on Twitter that the channel received an email from YouTube demanding the deletion of an archived live broadcast from Feb. 8, the independent-minded online publication Meduza.io reports. In this broadcast, Navalny recapped his larger investigative report on Deripaska and Prikhodko.
“If you do not delete this content, the company Google may be forced to block the content,” the US giant wrote, citing a takedown order from Roskomnadzor.
As of Feb. 13, the NavalnyLive video has more than 689,000 views. Another video, a 25-minute investigative report published on Navalny’s own YouTube channel (not mentioned in the letter published by Baulina), currently has more than 4 million views, notes Meduza.io.
Sex, corruption and video in Russia’s ruling circles as depicted by Alexey Navalny, a fierce opponent to the Putin regime
