Com ministry: Russia to never follow China’s suit on Internet

SHANGHAI, Apr 26 (PRIME) -- Russia will never follow China’s suit of the Internet regulation and creation of a national firewall is out of the question, Deputy Communications and Mass Media Minister Alexei Volin said on Thursday.

“These are vain concerns. Regardless of the fact that we’re good friends with China and share information on the development of the media market, we’ve always taken for granted that Russia is Russia, and China is China. We’ll never go the Chinese path on the Internet. We have our own Russian path, and there is no question of creating any Russian firewall,” Volin said.

“We should remember that (a firewall) is very expensive and costly. Moreover, while in China, I can say that any person who wants to access the resources banned in China can do it within seven minutes without any problems.”

China launched a powerful Internet filter, Great Firewall of China, in 2009, which made unavailable some Google websites and blocked Facebook and Twitter. Amid a lack of foreign social networks, Chinese analogues, like WeChat and Weibo, are hugely popular.

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