The U.S. has accused the Russian governments for interfering with its 2016 Presidential Election (1) (2), in which the latter denied.
This time, Russia is warning its adversary to not interfere with its domestic politics, with Russia's state communications regulator Roskomnadzor in sending a letter to Google to stop "advertising" protests on YouTube ahead of its 2019 Moscow City Duma election.
Roskomnadzor didn't specifically detailed which YouTube accounts or channels, but if Google does not take corrective action, Roskomnadzor said that it would respond to what it regards as attempts to obstruct "democratic elections in Russia."
At this moment, Russia experienced numerous protests where tens of thousands of citizens rallied in Moscow and other cities for several weekends, calling for fair election.
They demand the authorities to allow independent candidates to take part in city's upcoming local elections.
During the process, the authorities have arrested hundreds of people, with riot police dispatched in the area.
This isn't the first time Russia warned Google.
Previously, Roskomnadzor has fined the search giant twice in 2018 for failing to remove links to websites banned by the government, with fines amounted to less than $20,000 in total.
Russia is still on the move to take control and prevent any of its domestic politics and information to go outside its borders.
This follows and also to deal with: Russia in facing U.S. accusations for meddling with its election, accusations of state-sponsored hacks against other countries, and its rules that force foreign tech companies to store Russian users data within the country.
It also goes beyond that, as Russia is also trying to put a greater domestic censorship, with Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a measure that would enable the creation of national internet that is similar to the Chinese Great Firewall.
This initiative aims to protect Russia from foreign online restrictions by creating what the Kremlin calls a "sustainable, secure and fully functioning" local internet.
