Social networks under pressure in Russia

After the online professional network LinkedIn was blocked in Russia in November, this week saw renewed speculation on the presence of Western social networks in Russia.

“The law limiting foreign capital in companies providing audiovisual content to 20 per cent might force YouTube to leave Russia,” Russian newspaper Kommersant wrote this Wednesday.

A draft law was presented to the Duma last week, which targets websites that have more than 100,000 views per month in Russia.

LinkedIn blocked – What’s next?
According to a report quoted by Kommersant, it would force YouTube to build special infrastructure on Russian territory or to leave Russia. On Thursday, Deputy Communications Minister Alexei Volin denied the rumours: “We can officially say that all talk of YouTube facing legal restrictions is simply not true,” he said.

Last month, Russian authorities started blocking access to LinkedIn, a social network with approximately 6 million Russian users. The blocking was a follow-up to a court decision that found the “US-based social network in violation of a law requiring data of Russian users to be stored on Russian territory”, as The Guardian reports.

The blocking of LinkedIn is the first time that the law has been used against a major Western company. Social media giants Twitter, Google and Facebook have not complied with the law yet, The Guardian reports, and are therefore believed to be under pressure.