MOSCOW, February 15. /TASS/. Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor has ordered telecommunications service providers to block access to blogger Alexei Navalny’s webpages containing personal information related to businessman Oleg Deripaska, the watchdog’s press service told TASS.
"Roskomnadzor has ordered telecommunications service providers to limit access to the webpages at navalny.com, mentioned in the ruling issued by the Krasnodar region’s Ust-Labinsky District Court. The information addressed by the court has not been deleted from the website," the press service said.
The media watchdog expects Google to make a decision as to whether YouTube would or would not delete content mentioned in the court ruling. "Roskomnadzor expects Google to make a positive decision," the press service noted.
The lawsuit in question was filed on February 9 against Anastasia Vashukevich and Alexander Kirillov, who had posted private photos of Oleg Deripaska on their social media accounts, as well as audio recordings of his conversations, thus violating his privacy. The lawsuit did not directly concern Navalny, who had used the content available on social media for investigative purposes. The court upheld the plaintiff’s request and ruled that access to Deripaska’s personal information be blocked until the dispute was resolved.
Navalny’s website, the webpage dedicated to his investigation concerning Deripaska and Deputy Prime Minister Serge Prikhodko, as well as the relevant YouTube video, were earlier included in the list of information banned from circulation. Both Deripaska and Prikhodko say that the information the blogger made public is untrue.
The relevant information has already been deleted from Instagram accounts.