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Russian Internet developing, no forced switch to national networks planned — upper house

Valentina Matviyenko noted that Russia needed its own reliable networks, which currently play a crucial role in ensuring life, organizing business, working processes, conditions for citizens, including security

MOSCOW, October 6. / TASS /. Russia will continue to develop Runet (Russian Internet) in order to protect citizens from outages of global online resources, however, there will be no forced transition to Russian networks, Federation Council (upper house) Speaker Valentina Matviyenko stated on Wednesday.

"We have been developing our own IT platforms, messengers, our own Runet in order to protect our citizens and the country from the aftermath of such possible accidents. Naturally, no one will force [citizens] to switch to Russian networks. We should create a competitive product, not worse but even better than other existing global platforms, so that people have a choice," the upper house speaker noted.

According to Matviyenko, the crucial thing is for people to be sure that Russian networks are safer and more reliable. "Many experts are now discussing this issue. I can assure you that no concept of disconnecting Russia from world networks is being developed," the upper house speaker said.

Matviyenko pointed out that such a concept is not required. "We do not need a switch to disconnect Russia from the whole world. We need our own reliable networks, which currently play a crucial role in ensuring life, organizing business, working processes, conditions for citizens, including security. We will further develop our capabilities," she stated.

The upper house speaker mentioned that Monday’s massive crash of social networks "shook the world, indicating that everything was vulnerable." "We have no guarantees that such an IT-related disaster will not happen again. Although, there is no assurance that some forces will not turn off the Internet at a certain time. This will have very serious global aftermath regarding damage to business, citizens, security," Matviyenko said.

On Monday, users around the globe reported a massive disruption in the activities of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Facebook confirmed that the problem was a faulty configuration change that triggered DNS routers to malfunction, thereby causing a global outage that lasted more than 6.5 hours.