Russia Orders Netflix to Stream State Television Broadcasts

Russian media regulatory agency Roskomnadzor said Tuesday that beginning in March 2022, American streaming service Netflix will be required to include Russian state media broadcasts and obey various authoritarian media laws, including a ban on anything classified as “extremism.”

The Russian government considers virtually all criticism of itself to be “extreme.”

The Moscow Times saw glimpses of Netflix’s future in the way Google and Apple were forced to censor “extremist” content concerning dissident leader Alexei Navalny in advance of parliamentary elections in September. Russian officials threatened to arrest local employees of the two American companies if they did not comply.

Navalny survived an attempt by agents of the Russian government to assassinate him with chemical weapons last year and was thrown in jail upon returning to Moscow. Russian officials are currently cracking down on his allies, raiding the homes of his associates, and driving critics of Vladimir Putin into exile.

Google and other American companies have also been hit with gigantic fines for refusing to meet censorship demands from the Russian state.

Now Netflix will be forced to carry content created by the state if it wants to keep doing business in Russia, since it has been added to Roskomnadzor’s “register” of online services under its authority:

Roskomnadzor’s register, which was created in late 2020, applies to online streaming services with over 100,000 daily users and requires them to comply with Russian law and register a Russian company.

Registered services are also required to provide streams of 20 major Russian federal television channels.

From March 2022, Netflix will be obliged to offer broadcasts from flagship state-owned Channel One, entertainment-focused NTV and the Russian Orthodox Church’s in-house channel Spas, which means “Saved,” to its users within Russia.

The laws that Netflix must now obey include controversial provisions banning the promotion of “extremism” — a restriction which has been used against supporters of the anti-Kremlin opposition.

Netflix is capable of streaming live content using a feature called “Direct,” tested in France last year.

According to the state-run Tass news agency, Netflix was added to the Roskomnadzor registry at the urging of an association of Russian video service operators, who demanded “equal operating conditions” for the American streaming giant now that it has over 100,000 users per day in Russia.