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Google, Twitter and Facebook must surrender to Tsar Putin

by on22 May 2015


Must grass up his enemies

Russia's media watchdog has ordered Google, Twitter and Facebook to grass up the names and addresses of those who do not like President Vladamir Putin or be shut down.

Roskomnadzor has threatened the US companies that if they do not submit to the will of Tsar Putin they will be blocked in Mother Russia.

Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky.said that to comply with the law, the three firms must hand over data on Russian bloggers with more than 3,000 readers per day, and take down websites calling for protests which have not been blessed by Tsar Putin. He especially does not want to see protests by punk rock bands, women who take their clothes off, gays, anti-christians, those who dont like their priests with manly beards and Apple users [we agree with him on the last one]. 

Putin once described the Internet as a project of the CIA, but last year promised not to put the Internet under full government control.

But last year a law passed last year gives Russian prosecutors the right to block without a court decision websites with information about protests that have not been sanctioned by authorities.

Under other legislation, bloggers with large followings must go through an official registration procedure and have their identities confirmed by a government agency.

Facebook says it responds to government data requests about its users that comply with company policies and local laws and meet international standards of legal process.

However it rejected both of two Russian government requests for information on its users last year. Curiously it produced some data in response to nearly 80 percent of over 14,000 requests made by U.S. courts, police and government agencies in the second six months of 2014.

Twitter had a similar response rate in the United States but rejected 108 Russian government requests in the second half of last year, according to data on the company's government Transparency Report site.

Google said it provided some information on users in response to 5 percent of 134 Russian government requests made in the second half of 2014 -- again far less than in the United States. The company says it complies with requests that follow accepted legal procedures and Google policies.

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