"Against discrimination": a draft law on blocking sites for censoring Russian media was submitted to the State Duma

A bill on measures taken against Internet platforms for censorship against Russian media or citizens has been submitted to the State Duma for consideration.

The text of the document, authored by a group of deputies of the lower house and Senator Alexei Pushkov, is posted in the electronic database of the State Duma.

Parliamentarians propose to introduce into the legislation the status of "owner of an information resource involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation." 

As explained in the document, in case of violations, the Prosecutor General, in agreement with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, can assign this status to the owner of a website that, inter alia, discriminates against materials from Russian media.

This decision can also be made if the Internet resource has limited access to socially important information based on nationality, language, or in connection with the imposition of sanctions against Russia or its citizens.

The corresponding status will be assigned if the site owner establishes other restrictions "violating the right of citizens of the Russian Federation to freely search, receive, transmit, produce and distribute information in any legal way."

Information on the inclusion of certain persons in a special list will be sent to Roskomnadzor, which will be able to introduce “full or partial restriction of access” in relation to portals whose owners are recognized as violators. 

"Recognition of the owner of an information resource as involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation, including guaranteeing freedom of the media, entails the adoption of measures provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation with respect to the information resource," the document says.

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The authors of the initiative explain that the bill was developed to protect the rights of citizens of the Russian Federation to freely search, access and disseminate information.

It is emphasized that the relevance of its adoption is due to the numerous facts of unreasonable restriction of Russians' access to information of the domestic media from certain resources.

“Since April 2020, the authorized bodies of the Russian Federation have been recording complaints from media editors about the facts of censoring their accounts by foreign Internet platforms Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Such media outlets as Russia Today, RIA Novosti, "Crimea 24" were censored, the document explains.

Anton Gorelkin, one of the authors of the bill, a member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications, said that the fine for Internet platforms for censoring Russian media will be from several thousand to 3 million rubles.

Aleksey Pushkov, chairman of the Federation Council commission on information policy, stressed that the proposed bill is not aimed at blocking foreign sites, but at protecting Russian media.

"Blocking is only an extreme measure, but not its goal," said Pushkov.

The bill submitted to the State Duma is not intended to block foreign Internet resources, but to protect the Russian media.

It is directed against censorship and discrimination against them by foreign online campaigns.

This is the essence of the law.

Blocking is only a last resort, but not its goal.

- Alexey Pushkov (@Alexey_Pushkov) November 19, 2020

Roskomnadzor supported the initiative, noting that Russian law "cannot and should not be substituted in the country by the rules of Internet companies." 

“If a restriction of access to information by the Russian media is revealed, the owners of a foreign Internet resource will be recognized as a violator.

If the requirement is not fulfilled (to eliminate violations. -

, access to the Internet resource may be restricted, "the ministry's official Telegram channel says.

Commenting on the bill submitted to parliament, the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that there is discrimination against Russian clients on large foreign Internet platforms.

“We have seen them in recent weeks, months, and, of course, this needs to be countered ... The development of mechanisms is a subject for careful study, and I think that in the process of discussing this bill, such a mechanism will be developed,” Peskov said.

Censorship of Russian media

Moscow has repeatedly drawn attention to the biased attitude of American Internet platforms towards materials from Russian media.

So, in October, Roskomnadzor reported an increase in the spread of fake information on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

The service paid attention to the fact that these companies continue to ignore the demand to end the censorship of the Russian media, which has "acquired a systemic character."

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter restrict access to materials from about 20 Russian media outlets, including RT, RIA Novosti, Sputnik and Russia 1, the department emphasized.

It is worth recalling that in August, Twitter announced the introduction of tags for accounts belonging to representatives of diplomatic departments of different countries, as well as for accounts of state-related media and their senior officials.

In particular, the markings appeared on RT's Twitter accounts in Russian, English, German, French, Arabic and Spanish, on the RIA Novosti page, on the Russia Segodnya press center, on the personal page of RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, and on the accounts of a number of other Russian media.

At the same time, the social network did not flag Western media sources receiving funding through the government.

Moreover, at the end of September, Twitter removed the RIA Novosti account from the search results.

Before that, RT and Sputnik profiles were hidden in a similar way. 

The Russian Foreign Ministry called the company's actions an attempt to deliberately oust the domestic media from the international information space.

Also in September, the Russian embassy in the United States called on the Facebook administration to end censorship and discrimination against Russian users.

The diplomatic mission pointed to Facebook's attempts to "clean up discussion platforms and Russian media that are critical to the West." 

The embassy clarified that Facebook does not hide what kind of content fell under the target of the social network: “news and current events, including protests and elections in Belarus, politics of Russia and Ukraine, geopolitical conspiracies, relations between Russia and NATO, Russia's relations with neighboring countries, and See also criticism of US foreign policy.