Watchdog calls Sep 8 political ads on Google, Facebook intrusion

MOSCOW, Sep 9 (PRIME) – Facebook, Google and YouTube have interfered into Russia’s internal affairs by publishing banned political advertisements on September 8, a single voting day, the Russian communications service said late on Sunday in a statement and called the actions inadmissible.

“The revealed facts of violations will be handed over for consideration to a parliamentary commission on investigation of foreign interference into internal affairs of the Russian Federation,” the authority’s press secretary Vadim Ampelonsky said.

A situation when automatic advertising tools of Google and Facebook are used for distribution of political advertisements on the day the Russian law calls as the day of silence is frequent, he said.

“Last year we worked with the companies on similar situations. Recommendations to exclude their advertising tools from distribution of political campaigns in the periods when it is banned by law were sent to them. Unfortunately, such recommendations were ignored,” Ampelonsky said.

A State Duma commission member Andrei Isayev said the body will invite officials from Google and Facebook. “We’re ready to discuss everything openly,” he said.

Andrei Klimov, head of the Federation Council’s committee on protection of state sovereignty, said, “We have a well-established mechanism of communication with representatives of these companies. Anyway, it will be an object of serious consideration by the commission.”

He said he personally saw political calls to vote against certain candidates on Russian-speaking channel Euronews on September 8. “We’ll deal with all who breach laws of the Russian Federation,” Klimov said.

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