Putin: Internet is A CIA Project

Local Editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the internet is a "CIA project" developed by the US to help its overseas espionage, adding that Moscow needed to fight to resist this US influence, as he said at a media conference in Russia on Thursday.

Speaking at a media forum in St. Petersburg on Thursday, Putin said that the Internet originally was a ‘CIA project' and "is still developing as such," according to a report by The Associated Press.

Putin assured a group of young journalists that the Internet was controlled from the start by the CIA and its surveillance continues today.

"That's life. That's how it's organised by Americans. You know all of this started during the dawn of the Internet as a special project of the CIA. And it keeps on developing," Putin said in televised comments.

Putin said the "CIA project" was still developing and that Russia needed to be protected from it. Putin said Russia needed to resist that influence and "fight for its interests online", the AP said.

His remarks come in the wake of a law passed by the Russian parliament this week requiring foreign social media websites to keep their servers in Russia. The law also requires them to save all information about their users for at least six months.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team