“Starting March 1, Roskomnadzor began extrajudicially restricting access to information on the Internet that advertises or popularizes means of bypassing blocking access to illegal content. In the period from March 1 to March 31, Roskomnadzor sent 628 notifications to website owners demanding that they remove such illegal content. The resource owners promptly removed prohibited materials from 546 Internet pages,” the press service said.
It is noted that for failure to comply with the department’s requirements and failure to remove materials on this topic, Roskomnadzor blocked 82 pages.
“Basically, prohibited information was posted on pages on social networks, as well as specialized resources aimed at popularizing the use of VPNs to bypass blocking,” the department explained.
In addition, they recalled that the law provides for administrative liability under Art. 13.41 of the Administrative Code in the form of a fine in the amount of 800 thousand rubles to 4 million rubles.
“In case of repeated offense, turnover fines are provided in the amount of 1/20 to 1/10 of the company’s total annual revenue. All these measures are necessary to protect people from information that can be posted on prohibited resources for criminal purposes, including the distribution of drugs, child pornography and extremism,” the RKN added.
In addition, foreign owners of means of bypassing blocking of access to illegal content have information that Russian users transmit when visiting resources blocked in Russia.
“Personal data, financial information and account passwords obtained in this way can be studied and subsequently used for fraudulent purposes, blackmail and other illegal actions against Russian users or their environment,” the department concluded.
Earlier it was reported that Roskomnadzor restricted access to 11 Telegram channels with terrorist content.