Russian media watchdog asks Tiktok to take down younger folks’s name to protests — The Calvert Journal

Russian media watchman Roskomnadzor has asked TikTok and Russian social media network VKontakte to remove posts to encourage young people to take part in protests against Putin after opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to Russia.

At the request of the Russian Prosecutor General, officials urged both platforms to remove content that “disseminated information intended to involve minors in the commission of illegal activities,” the organization said on January 20.

The call for censorship follows viral clips from users who pledged to participate in protests in support of Navalny on January 23. “I ask you to go out into the street. I want to live in a free country. I don’t want to be afraid to take to the streets, ”said a young woman in her Tik Tok video. Others filmed themselves getting dressed, with captions: “I’ll say goodbye to my parents if I go for a walk on January 23rd” or “Say goodbye to friends who don’t want to go for a walk with me on January 23rd. “

Navalny was arrested on January 17 after a flight from Berlin to Moscow and detained at the last minute in a suburban police station after a provisional trial. He was hospitalized in Germany in 2020 after being poisoned by a suspected nerve agent in Siberia who Navalny and many Western leaders claim was perpetrated by the Kremlin.