The Russian House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow officials to restrict or block access to American social networks such as Facebook or Twitter.

MPs who proposed two bills on December 23 said that violations by YouTube and Facebook demonstrated the need to pass these documents in an attempt to strengthen Russia's Internet sovereignty.

The first bill allows Russia to limit or completely block websites found to discriminate against the Russian media.

Twitter in August began labeling "state media" descriptively with accounts of several Russian news agencies, as well as accounts of high-ranking officials and some important government officials.

The second bill allows Russia to penalize Internet providers and websites 10-20% of their previous year's revenue in Russia for repeatedly refusing to remove banned content.

The bill provides a maximum fine of 8 million rubles ($ 106,700) for first-time violations when websites fail to remove content that contains calls for extreme activities, drug information or abuse.

MPs drafting the bill said YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have not removed hundreds of pages containing content that is prohibited under Russian law.

Two bills still need to be passed by the Senate and approved by President Vladimir Putin to become law.