YouTube Found Guilty?

On July 16, 2010, the Central district court of the Komsomolsk-on-Amur (Khabarovsk Territory) stated to restrict access to several online libraries and to the YouTube. In the judges’ opinion, the sites publish extremistic materials so that access to the resources in question should be closed for security reasons.

Also, in their opinion, this “extremism” is the fault of Internet provider (that has no relation with information published and disseminated at the resources in question). And the statement restricts access to the whole information flow of the reqources in question though most of data and videos published there carry no hazard for security of the country and its citizens.

*Ivan Pavlov, IIFD Board Chair: “The city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur is not very far from the Chinese border. Local officials seem to share the neighbors’ experience too thoroughly”.

Have judges taken into account that one having some practical IT knowledge will be able to obtain the so-called extremistic information despite of any prohibitions or censorship?

By the way, the Khabarovsk Territory Government official website holds the 30th place (of 83) in the IIFD’s informational openness rating for 2009. Its openness amounts to 37,23% – not a very impressive digit.

Is this real influence of China (quite loving various online barriers and locks) or something else?