MOSCOW, September 28. /TASS/. Nothing is stopping foreign digital giants operating in Russia as long as they comply with Russian legislation, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview with the RT TV channel.
"We should have the full arsenal of influence on these kinds of digital giants. But it doesn’t mean we should prohibit them. On the contrary, if they comply with all the rules, that’s fine," Medvedev said commenting on the law allowing to restriction of the work of major foreign social networks, video hosting services, search engines and other Internet platforms in case they violate the legislation of the Russian Federation.
He stressed that in fact, foreign IT giants "meddled in the political life in Russia" during the State Duma elections. According to him, "it’s a mess." "Yes, at a certain point [they] complied with Roskomnadzor's decision (Russia’s mass media watchdog — TASS) and halted this activity. It stopped precisely on the day of voting. Before that, this machinery propagated these videoclips with a person who is serving time for his criminal activity (blogger Alex Navalny - TASS)," Medvedev said emphasizing that foreign platforms attempted in that way to "put forward their policy in the foreign country."
"That’s why we should inevitably react to this," Medvedev added stressing that this legislation allows for restricting, blocking, and slowing down relevant social networks and IT platforms or penalizing them. "It’s not only the finger-wagging. It can be a more serious decision and even the prohibition of their activity," Deputy Chairman said. He also stressed that instead of "prohibiting them" there should be "some rules that allow for affecting [their behavior]." Medvedev added that even the US is going to pass legislation in this sphere, "the same processes go in Europe. They realized that it can control foreign election campaigns, affect people’s will and the EU is concerned over this issue."
Medvedev recalled that from January 1, mandatory registration will be introduced for foreign digital platforms with a daily audience that exceeds 500,000 Russian users. "I think that this rule allows us to affect the policy of these companies in our country," the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council said. "They should obey these decisions." According to him, it is not unusual to have an affiliate in a country where the digital platform has 10 million subscribers. "You get money from this activity in a foreign country, at the same time you don’t care about the law of this country. That's something humanity can hardly come to terms with. I’m convinced such law is likely to appear in any country," he said.
"I use social networks myself. They’re useful and interesting. Just comply with some rules and legislation of the host country," Medvedev concluded.