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Until last summer, Tsargrad TV, which was styled as a Russian Orthodox response to Fox News, was a dark corner of YouTube.
The Russian-language online news channel was best known for its priestly presenters and conspiratorial reflections on the global financial system plotting against Moscow, suspicions it confirmed last July when Google’s property transfer service withdrew the channel. on what he claimed was a breach of U.S. sanctions.
Now, Tsargrad is ready to attack after a court ruling that could endanger the entire Russian company Google as Moscow intensifies attempts to force Western technology companies to comply with its laws.
A Moscow court last month ordered Google to re-establish Tsargrad’s YouTube channel globally on the grounds that the ban had unfairly discriminated against its owner, Konstantin Malofeev.
Malofeev has been under US and EU sanctions since 2014 for his ties to Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine. But he told FT that YouTube had continued to pay Tsargrad about $ 10,000 a month in advertising revenue for years until the ban.
Google filed an appeal against the ruling on May 19. If lost, he will face a daily fine imposed by a court that could reach Rbs94tn ($ 1.28 million) by the end of the year, close to the $ 1.53 million market. capitalization of its parent company Alphabet.
YouTube said on Friday: “Google is committed to enforcing applicable penalties and commercial compliance laws. If we find that an account violates these laws, we will take appropriate action.”
“I have no plans to suffer as a Russian citizen in Russia because idiots in the United States are up to idiot things. That is why I defend my rights under Russian law, “Malofeev told the FT in an interview last week.
“If American Internet platforms cannot obey Russian law, there may be nothing to do in Russia. That is their decision,” he added, speaking to the Tsargrad office surrounded by memories of the Russian empire that adorns it.
Moscow sees growing control over what it calls its “digital sovereignty” at a time when foreign Internet giants control the personal data of Russians that the Kremlin fears could be used to expose its services. of intelligence or organizing protests.
President Vladimir Putin warned this year that forcing foreign companies to comply with Russian laws was crucial, so society did not “collapse from within.”
Google and YouTube are the most important targets. Imprisoned opposition activist Alexei Navalny, Putin’s most prominent opponent, has more subscribers to YouTube than all of Russia’s state television channels and has mobilized them to stage mass demonstrations.
The Tsargrad study. The canal has become an important vehicle for Russia’s conservative border © Tsargrad TV / YouTube
Russia is deploying various tools to counter technology groups. In the spring, censors deployed new technology from Russia’s “sovereign Internet” (in fact, a parallel website running on the country’s servers) to slows down Twitter in order not to suppress 3,168 publications, he said he encouraged illegal activity.
Roscomnadzor, the Internet censor, said this week that he would not ban Twitter after the site removed most of the disputed posts, but promised similar measures against YouTube and Facebook if they did not comply with local laws.
Russia’s antitrust watchdog is also investigating Google over what it called YouTube’s blocking policy “non-transparent, unobjective and unpredictable.”
Gazprom, Russia’s state gas monopoly, restarted local YouTube clone RuTube and launched Russian TikTok-style YaMolodets app late last year and plans to turn them into credible competitors.
Tsargrad owner Konstantin Malofeev told the FT that “I defend my rights under Russian law.” © Gavriil Grigorov / TASS via Getty Images
Its audience is a fraction of what its foreign counterparts enjoy. But another new law forcing smartphone makers to pre-install a stack of Russian-made apps on phones sold in the country could drive its users, according to Andrei Soldatov, a non-resident senior member of the Center for European Policy Analysis.
“They have decided to follow the Chinese route and launch analogies to all these services,” said Soldatov, co-author of a book on Russia’s attempts to control the Internet. “Now they really have the technological capabilities to attack global platforms, to slow down their traffic and do a lot of nasty things.”
Russia has threatened to ban foreign social media before. A blog on LinkedIn owned by Microsoft in 2016 failed to scare Silicon Valley into complying with Russia’s laws on data location and prohibited content. Companies found in violation of Russian law, on the other hand, were happy to pay the tiny fines imposed.
Roscomnadzor dropped the 2018 Telegram ban two years later after its Dubai-based Russian founder Pavel Durov found ways to circumvent the blockade.
“They fought alone. No one was helping. The entire presidential administration was running Telegram on their phones, “said German Klimenko, Putin’s former adviser on Internet affairs.
After Putin amended the constitution of Russia last year, Moscow had more legal weapons. One change affirms the primacy of Russian legislation over foreign courts when jurisdictions clash.
A later law required employers under international sanctions to use Russian courts to resolve foreign disputes. Another threat of punishment for “censorship” by Russian media after a popular pro-Kremlin talk show and state channel RT alleged that YouTube had withdrawn its videos. And a law introduced on Friday would allow Russia to ban Internet companies that refused to open local offices.
The new regulations would force Internet companies to comply with Russian law – or leave the market – said Klimenko, adding: “It’s not about charging fines.”
Alternatively, they could set up a separate version of your site in Russia, he said: “If you want to be an international channel, follow our rules. If you don’t want to, you can do whatever you want and your Russian IP will be [banned]”.
Tsargrad itself is a relative low: its online subscribers peaked at about 1 million before YouTube withdrew it. But Malofeev, a longtime advocate of greater government control over Russia’s internet, has made it an important vehicle for Russia’s conservative margin.
Now, by law, smartphone manufacturers must pre-install a list of Russian-made applications on phones sold in the country. © Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images
The Kremlin wants to take advantage of far-right patriotic sentiment through Malofeev’s allies who will run in parliament in September.
Malofeev, who maintains strong contacts with far-right figures in Europe and the United States, said he hoped Tsargrad’s judicial victory would inspire Western conservatives.
After the hearing, he wrote to Donald Trump urging the former U.S. president, who remains banned on Twitter and Facebook, to sue U.S. technology companies for censorship in Russian courts and “partner with us in the building the free speech platforms of the future “.
“The people of California can’t set the rules in Russia,” he said. “If they don’t let me come back, there’s nothing they can do here.”
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