Digital content & Related technologies

Caught between Russia’s censorship and West’s sanctions, Yandex seeks to sell assets

March 21, 2022

Yandex, the Russian online search giant — also running a variety of other digital services — is exploring different “strategic options, including disvestment, for its news aggregation service and infotainment platform Zen.” The company stated Friday it intended to “focus on developing its other technology-related businesses and products (including search, advertising, self-driving and cloud) and transactional services (including ride-hailing, e-commerce, …

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Amazon suspends access to Prime Video in Russia, halts shipments to the country

March 13, 2022

Amazon is suspending access to Prime Video for customers based in Russia amid the country’s invasion of Ukraine. In a blog post about the announcement, the company also noted that it has suspended the shipment of retail products to customers based in Russia and Belarus. Amazon will also no longer be accepting new Russia and Belarus-based AWS …

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Russia bans Facebook, BBC, Voice of America; Twitter and YouTube could be next

March 5, 2022

As it seeks to control the narrative about its war in Ukraine, Russia blocked access to Facebook today.  The Internet regulator Roskomnadzor justified its decision by alleged discriminations against Russian media and information resources. No fewer than 26 such cases have been recorded since October 2020, according to Roskomnadzor. The most recent cases concerned the Facebook accounts …

Russia bans Facebook, BBC, Voice of America; Twitter and YouTube could be next Read More

How Russian authorities invest in domestic alternatives to YouTube

February 12, 2022

The Russian authorities have been sinking money into domestic alternatives to YouTube for over a year, says a new investigation from iStories and Agentstvo. Allegedly, these Russian video platforms are meant to serve as substitutes in the event that Russia’s censorship agency bans YouTube altogether. However, sources say the country’s leadership doesn’t believe that anything will come of …

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Yandex wants make online marketing tools more accessible to musicians and small entrepreneurs

January 23, 2022

Yandex announced almost simultaneously — yesterday and today — two acquisitions. The NASDAQ-listed Russian digital giant is absorbing BandLink, a service for musicians, podcasters and labels to create micro sites, the news agency TASS reports. BandLink helps them promote their releases and concerts (including with personalised links for social media), analyze audiences and identify their …

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Russia to require Netflix to stream state television broadcasts

December 30, 2021

Roskomnadzor, the Russian Internet and telecom regulator, will require Netflix to offer state television channels to its Russian customers after it added the U.S.-based streaming service to its register of “audio-visual services” Tuesday. Roskomnadzor’s register, which was created in late 2020, applies to online streaming services with over 100,000 daily users and requires them to comply …

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Russia threatens to block YouTube for taking down another German RT channel

December 19, 2021

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecom and Internet regulator, is threatening to restrict access to YouTube after the video platform shut down yet another German-language channel run by the Russian state-controlled television network RT (Russia Today). According to a Roskomnadzor press release published on Friday, December 17, the federal censor sent a letter to YouTube’s parent company, Google, demanding that …

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“Engineering joy:” Sber’s new smart media speaker brings music, movies, gaming, food and much more to Russian homes

December 7, 2021

The technology ambitions of Sber, Russia’s state-controlled financial giant, were demonstrated again yesterday as the company presented its new smart media speaker. Sber claims the device was “created with the latest product design trends in mind” and touts it as a “one-of-a-kind in its category.” Christened ‘SberBox Time,’ the device combines the functionality of three …

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Sber creates virtual human to host Russian TV show

November 27, 2021

A virtual human built by Russian tech and finance giant Sber (ex-Sberbank) is hosting the Markets and Investor Calendar shows on RBC TV this month. Sber’s subsidiary SberDevices designed virtual host Elena using its new Visper platform for transforming pictures and audio recordings into AI characters that can realistically imitate human beings. Elena is an …

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Facebook and Google exposed to record fines for not removing unlawful content in Russia

October 11, 2021

Russia could impose record fines on Facebook and Google (held responsible for YouTube) for not removing prohibited content. Since these companies are accused of repeated violations, fines could be in the range of 1/20 to 1/10 of the yearly revenues they generate in Russia. Thus Facebook, which makes around 10 billion rubles per year in the …

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Russia vows “retaliation” for YouTube blocking RT’s German channels

September 29, 2021

The Russian government has decried YouTube’s decision to delete the state-funded RT broadcaster’s German-language channels as “information warfare” and said it will block German media in Russia in retaliation. The video streaming website on Tuesday deleted RT’s DE and DFP channels for breaching coronavirus misinformation policy. “This is a real media war declared by the state of …

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