MOSCOW, April 2 - RAPSI. The consumer rights regulator (Rospotrebnadzor) has claimed that YouTube LLC, which has appealed to the courts to invalidate the regulator's decision to ban one of its videos for containing pro-suicide information, has been using extra-judicial and even illegal methods to resolve the dispute.
Google, the owner of YouTube, was ordered to remove one of its video clips which the regulator believes to contain information which promotes or explains how to commit suicide. Google has taken down the video in question but then also decided to contest the order in court.
The Moscow Commercial Court has set the hearing for April 26.
"Rospotrebnadzor has evidence that the plaintiffs are trying to resolve the conflict by extra-judicial and even illegal methods," the regulator said in a statement Tuesday.
It believes that some of the plaintiffs' appeals to court are aimed at hindering the application of laws which are designed to prevent possible harm resulting from pro-suicide information.
The regulator announced in late March that YouTube's site contains the largest number of pro-suicide videos in Russia, but so far has done nothing to improve the situation.
As of March 18, the regulator had analyzed 1,309 websites to determine whether they contained information promoting suicide and detailing different ways to carry it out.
It took 1,164 decisions on closing these websites. Over 40 of these were taken with regard to YouTube videos. The law On Protecting Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development stipulates that an automated register of domain names be kept for identifying websites which contain prohibited information, in particular, child pornography, ways of committing suicide and drug making instructions.