The Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Digital Development, and Roskomnadzor are already working on amendments to Russian legislation that will expand the possibilities for blocking illegal content on the Web.
The work in this direction was announced by the Vice Speaker of the Federation Council, Inna Svyatenko, during a meeting of the parliamentary commission. According to Kommersant, Svyatenko believes that the document should spell out the requirements for distributors of "socially significant information content," and the authors "should be responsible for the quality and reliability of publicly posted content." However, the Vice Speaker of the Federation Council did not provide other details about the content of the bill.
Svyatenko's speech regarding new measures in legislation regarding blocking illegal content on the Web was in response to a proposal by the Vice Speaker of the State Duma, Anna Kuznetsova, to the government to create mechanisms for blocking destructive content in messengers.
Kuznetsova believes such mechanisms are necessary. According to her, in 19 regions of Russia, there were already active attempts to recruit minors through messengers to commit terrorist attacks. Also, children and adolescents are now receiving letters and messages with threats to themselves and their loved ones through messengers. According to Kuznetsova, the threats came, in particular, to the smartphones of participants in the World Youth Festival.
And after the terrorist attack in Krasnogorsk, the victims of which, according to the latest data, have already reached 144 people, children and adolescents began to "receive calls and messages urging them to support and imitate terrorists." Therefore, the Russian government has already received an appeal "with a proposal to create mechanisms for blocking destructive content in messengers."
However, as Kuznetsova noted, destructive content in messengers has recently been influencing minors not only in Russia, but also in other post-Soviet countries. Both in Russia and abroad, it is "aimed at inciting interethnic conflicts in the adolescent environment, including the formation of cells of the protest movement, and discrediting Russian values."
Earlier in early 2024, it became known that Russia will have its own new specialized information system that will block illegal content on the Web. Presumably, the system will combat a whole range of violations of the law: from fake news spreaders to traders of fake documents and financial online pyramids.
The bill, which will allow the use of "an operational decision to block malicious sites using a specialized information system," according to sources in some media outlets, was drawn up by the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Digital Development, and Roskomnadzor. The same list of authors of amendments to the legislation was announced by Svyatenko.