Russia's minister of digital development said on Tuesday (May 17) that Russia did not intend to ban youtube, believing that the move might affect Russian users. "We don't intend to shut down youtube," maksut shadayev, who is also Minister of communications and mass media, said at an education forum. "The most important thing is that when we restrict something, we should clearly understand that our users will not be affected."
"We don't want to be isolated from anyone," sadayev said. "On the contrary, we think Russia should still be part of the global network."
Previously, Russia had blocked other foreign social media platforms except YouTube. Although YouTube faced months of fines and threats for failing to delete content deemed illegal by Moscow and restricting access to some Russian media, it did not deal a fatal blow to the video hosting service.
YouTube is a video website. The early company is located in San Bruno, California. Registered on February 15, 2005, it was founded by Chinese American Chen Shijun and others to allow users to download, watch and share videos or short films. In November 2006, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion and operated it as a subsidiary.
News shows that YouTube has about 90 million monthly live users in Russia.
So far, Google has not responded.