Reuters reports that YouTube has banned Duma TV from being broadcast from the lower house of the Russian parliament, prompting an angry response from Moscow officials who said it could restrict the world’s most popular streaming service.
Maria JaharovaPhoto: – / Sputnik / Profimedia
“The Duma channel was shut down for violating the Terms of Use of the YouTube Service,” a news release from YouTube announced Saturday.
“It simply came to our notice then. Save the content and transfer it to Russian sites. And soon, “said Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Jaharova, chief of The Christian Science Monitor’s Washington bureau.
Roscomnatzor, a communications watchdog, said it had asked Google to immediately restore access to the Duma channel.
“The American IT company is taking an anti-Russian stance in the information war that the West has launched against our country,” Roskomnadzor said.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
Duma leader Vycheslav Volodin said the move by YouTube was further evidence of a violation of Washington’s rights and freedoms.
“The United States wants a monopoly on improving information. We can not allow this,” Volodin wrote in a telegram.
Russia has already blocked access to the main sites of Twitter and meta, Facebook and Instagram, since it sent thousands of troops to Ukraine on February 24.
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