ADVERTISEMENT

Sexy `Graft' Clip May Lead Russia to Hit YouTube, Instagram

Sexy `Graft' Video May Lead Russia to Block Instagram, YouTube

(Bloomberg) -- Russia may block access to YouTube and Instagram after billionaire Oleg Deripaska won a court injunction against videos and photographs that showed him and Deputy Prime Minister Sergey Prikhodko relaxing on a yacht with a woman described as an escort.

Deripaska won an order from the Ust-Labinsk district court in his native Krasnodar region ordering the removal of 14 Instagram posts and seven YouTube videos that breached his right to privacy, according to a spokeswoman for his Basic Element company. Anti-Kremlin campaigner Alexey Navalny said the order also threatens to block his website after he published an online film alleging that the videos and photographs posted by Anastasiya Vashukevich, who goes by the name Nastya Rybka, showed evidence of a corrupt relationship between the aluminum tycoon and the senior minister.

Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor included the materials on its register of blacklisted sites following the court order. Its press office declined to comment. Internet providers must block access to online services within days unless information declared illegal is deleted.

Google warned Navalny that the material on his YouTube channel will be blocked if he doesn’t remove it, according to a letter posted by the opposition leader’s team late Monday. Google’s press service declined to comment to Bloomberg News. The video, which attracted more than 4.1 million views, was still available on YouTube Tuesday.

Deripaska denied wrongdoing after Navalny published his video Feb. 8, calling it a “planned campaign” to damage his reputation. The injunction was granted Feb. 9. Navalny’s allegations “should have been answered in a manly way, but we’ll stay within the law,” Prikhodko said, the RBC newspaper reported on Feb. 9.

Navalny, who was barred from running against Vladimir Putin in March’s presidential elections, has built a massive online following in Russia for investigations accusing government ministers and top officials of corruption. He inspired the largest anti-government protests since 2012 last year after releasing a video showing lavish estates allegedly belonging to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who denied wrongdoing.

Seeking Removal

YouTube and Instagram may be blocked in Russia as early as Wednesday unless they comply with the order and remove the material, Vedomosti newspaper reported, citing the watchdog. Representatives of Facebook Inc., which owns Instagram, and YouTube’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., declined to comment.

Deripaska is seeking removal of only the 14 Instagram posts and seven YouTube videos, and not to block access to the two services entirely, the spokeswoman for Basic Element said in an email.

“It’s impossible for internet providers to block certain pages on Instagram and YouTube,” and they’ll have to block the services unless the material singled out by the watchdog is deleted, said Karen Kazaryan, chief analyst at the Russian Association for Electronic Communications, an internet lobby group. There’s also a “high chance that Navalny may need to remove this information to avoid being blocked.”

The action against his investigation is “a brazen act of censorship,” Navalny wrote on his website, which also remained accessible on Tuesday. “I urge everyone to spread this video wherever you can.”

Billionaire Alisher Usmanov took to YouTube last year to post his own video responses to Navalny’s allegations that he donated real estate to a fund benefiting Medvedev, calling the anti-corruption campaigner a “loser” and saying “I spit on you.” Usmanov later won a defamation lawsuit, in which a court ordered Navalny to retract the allegations. So far, he has not complied.

To contact the reporters on this story: Ilya Khrennikov in Moscow at ikhrennikov@bloomberg.net, Yuliya Fedorinova in Moscow at yfedorinova@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rebecca Penty at rpenty@bloomberg.net, Tony Halpin, Gregory L. White

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.