Russian Lawmakers Draft Bill on Compulsory Registration of Popular Websites

Text of report by popular Russian newspaper Moskovskiy Komsomolets on 12 February

[Interview with Vladimir Slutsker, deputy chairman of Federation Council Joint Commission for Nationalities Policy and State's Relations With Religious Associations, by Viktoriya Prikhodko, headlined: "New framework for 'web'. Senators make cap for internet sites"]

The number of information resources in the internet may decrease. A draft law which equates sites with an audience of more than 1,000 people with print media is being prepared in the Federation Council [upper house of Russian parliament]. This signifies their compulsory registration. There are now some 5,000 such sites on the Russian- language web. Some internet publications have already been registered as mass media, but on the whole they do not need official papers to exist. Vladimir Slutsker, deputy chairman of the Joint Commission for Nationalities Policy and the State’s Relations With Religious Associations at the Federation Council, told Moskovskiy Komsomolets why a “framework” was needed.

[Slutsker] Amendments are needed to increase responsibility for the information being posted. We propose equating internet sites with mass media depending on the frequency of visits. This accords with Article 12 of the law “On mass media”, whereby print media with a print run of 1,000 copies and more are subject to compulsory registration. Popular sites will have to bear the responsibility envisaged by law for the mass media.

[Prikhodko] By how much, in your opinion, will the number of internet resources decrease if the law comes into force?

[Slutsker] It will decrease greatly. But this reduction will affect resources which post data known to be incorrect, all sorts of pornography and libel.

[Prikhodko] Will the law apply to LiveJournal [Russia's most popular blogging platform]?

[Slutsker] The document that we are preparing primarily concerns specifically information sites, while the majority of popular blogs on LiveJournal are of a quite different nature. Incidentally, the majority of internet sites now provide information from an anonymous source – something that must not be done on LiveJournal. At the same time, Article 57 of the law exempts mass media from responsibility if they have reproduced verbatim reports and materials disseminated by other media. Thus, the law we are proposing deals not just with registration but with limiting the possibility of duplicating unreliable information.

[Prikhodko] Which organ will have to deal with the registering of internet mass media?

[Slutsker] The same one as now registers the “conventional” ones – that is, the Federal Service for Supervision in Mass Communications, Communications and Preservation of Cultural Heritage…

Meanwhile

The owner of a popular blog told Moskovskiy Komsomolets that if the legislative innovation is viewed as an attempt to impose censorship on the entire Russian section of the internet, then it is doomed to fail. After all, it is a five-minute job to transfer any “problem” site to a host that is physically located in another country. In this connection it is appropriate to recall the story of the [Chechen rebel] Kavkaz-Tsentr site, which Russia has been trying to get closed down for several years now, but still with no result.

Originally published by Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Moscow, in Russian 12 Feb 08.

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