Access to YouTube may be blocked in Russia
Hashtag #HandsOffYouTube (#РукиПрочьОтЮтуба) exploded Russian sector of twitter with the breaking news concerning the biggest video-sharing website YouTube. According to Kiev Post news portal , Communications Minister of Russian Federation Nikolay Nikiforov warned that Russia could officially block access to YouTube, because of the scandalous movie “Innocence of Muslims”, hosted by the website. This anti-Islam film, which makes fun of prophet Muhammed, has sparked riots in a number of Islamic countries, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Afghanistan, which already limited or blocked access to YouTube , “Times of India” reported .
Islam is one of the traditional religion in Russia, as well as the Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism. 10 million people out of 143 million citizens of Russia are Muslims. Such a huge number makes Russian government worry about possible negative consequences of the free access to insulting video, which makes sense in terms of the powerful position of YouTube in nowadays information sector.
In the unlimited informational space random video can become a vigorous weapon with huge unpredictable effect. The good example of YouTube video influence was perfectly covered by the first episode of “Black Mirror” TV-project called “National Anthem”. There the short video of kidnapped member of the Royal Family, which appeared on YouTube only for 9 minutes and then was deleted, shook the whole country and put the Prime Minister into the shocking dilemma concerning the sexual intercourse on public.
Despite the fact of YouTube strong position and possible problems, caused by that, the idea of its shutting in Russia seems ridiculous, nevertheless, the decision of doing so will be taken on Nov. 3-5.
Interesting how one of the essential rights – right of free access to information – can be easily deprived from 143 millions of Russian citizens. In modern world information is a benefit accessible and owned by everyone. But who owns the information in Russia? And is this prevention step reasonable enough or it will cause more serious problems in future?
