MOSCOW – The State Duma adopted a bill banning the use of means of bypassing the blocking of the access to the forbidden websites, the so-called ‘anonymizers’, in Russia on the first reading.
The draft federal law, which was introduced by deputies from three factions on June 8, is aimed at countering the use in Russia of information and telecommunications networks, information systems and software allowing to access the websites that were declared incompatible with the Russian legislation.
In addition, the bill proposes to provide to owners of the relevant networks and programs the access to the Russian Federal Communications and Information Technologies Oversight Service’s (Roskomnadzor) information resource containing records of websites banned in Russia.
The same group of sponsors introduced in the package of measures in the initiative to ban bypassing the blocking of information in Russia the amendments to the Russian Administrative Offenses Code providing for fines imposed on search engines operators for failure to honor the obligation in obtaining the access to Roskomnadzor’s information system containing the list of details on information resources banned in Russia.
The bill envisages imposing fines in the amount up to 700,000 rubles on search engines for providing links to the websites offering means of bypassing the block on banned information.
The bill also suggests abolishing the register of bloggers as it has become obsolete, State Duma information policy and information technologies committee chairman Leonid Levin said.
It provides for abolishing the amendment to the law ‘On organizers of information dissemination’ adopted in 2014 which required bloggers to register.
“It’s a timely measure, because it lost its importance due to development of technology,” Levin said.
The so-called ‘law on bloggers’ in accordance to which bloggers’ websites and social networks accounts with daily traffic ranking over 3,000 users should be added to the Roskomnadzor’s register, entered into force on August 1, 2014.
In accordance to the law, bloggers should independently add themselves to the register; otherwise, the service would compulsorily add them there.
The law requires popular bloggers to verify the validity of posted information and refrain from circulating extremist materials and information about the citizens’ private life in violation of the legislation.
The law also assigns several media functions to the bloggers, in accordance to which they should verify information they circulate.
In February 2016, Roskomnadzor chief Alexander Zharov said that a little over 2,000 bloggers were registered by then.
