Belarusian journalists urge Google and Yandex to localize news services

pixabay.com
pixabay.com

The heads of independent media in Belarus and representatives of the media community have appealed to major Internet searchers.

They suggested that global Internet corporations fully localize the news and recommendation services of these companies as soon as possible. They are also calling for recognition of the Internet segment of Belarus as a separate market. This is stated in the declaration "On the need to recognize the geographical localization of Internet services and the recognition of the Internet segment of Belarus as a separate market".

Among the services in question are Google.Discover and Zen.Yandex, as well as news aggregators Google.News and Yandex.News.

The heads of Belarusian mass media are calling for separating the Belarusian news from the news of the neighboring Russian-speaking countries. At the same time, it is proposed that the Belarusian media be given the first place among the sources of information in the recommendation systems for users who have chosen the region of Belarus as their main one.

The Declaration was adopted at the National Internet Governance Forum (IGF) on November 19. It was signed by the chief editors of Euroradio, TUT.by, BelaPAN, Onliner.by, Nasha Niva, reform.by, CityDog.by, chair of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, etc.