Russia may revise IT law on Western firms’ acts amid rallies

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (PRIME) -- Russia does not rule out a revision of the IT industry legislation because of the actions of Western companies amid the recent unsanctioned protests, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told PRIME in an interview published on Wednesday.

“I would not exclude anything in this sphere,” Ryabkov said, adding that revision of the laws in the IT industry is necessary.

“It does not mean that we will change something head-on, although deep changes are overdue. The colleagues in the Internet giants working with a multi-billion international audience have gone too far, as we may put it like that, from the point of view of shaping their ideas of all-permissiveness,” he said.

Content censoring in the Western social networks and on large media platforms have become more frequent.

“The efforts to disconnect the undesirable from social networks simply manifest that media platforms, which served generally as ‘a free tribune’ to express different opinions -- I would not judge now how successful or unsuccessful it was -- are transforming into tools of punishment, tools of enforcement, into the media imposing the discipline of the rod by those who set the tone to the mainstream in the U.S. and the West on the whole,” the diplomat said.

“The initial idea of information exchange over the borders has mutated into something opposite to a degree that the role of these Internet giants is changing dramatically. Consequently, we should take it into consideration in our approaches as well.”

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