Blogger Collar
In the case of the so-called law “on bloggers,” I specifically set myself the taboo to familiarize myself with the text of the bill until it became law. That is, it was not discussed in several readings, adopted by the State Duma and signed by the President. Why throw beads and waste emotions. The fact that such a law would be passed was understandable. Over the past few years, there has been a steady legislative trend aimed at introducing essentially Internet censorship. Censorship is tight. The Internet has always been a territory for free communication, and bloggers were essentially the mouthpieces of this freedom - freedom of speech, thought, opinion. Yes, they are not white and fluffy, and it is not uncommon for bloggers to violate laws and moral standards ... there are many such "yes", but instead of looking for ways to regulate, they went along the prohibition path.
In February, the Prosecutor General’s Office was given the opportunity to block Internet sites without a court ruling; in May, a collar and a leash were put on bloggers.
The revised version of the “Law on Bloggers”, adopted at first, shocked me (because it turned out to be completely different from what many media wrote about), and then into a stupor (because the ambiguity and vagueness of the wording is so great that how to apply this the law will be completely incomprehensible in practice).
So, closer to the point. Federal Law dated 05.05.2014 No. 97-ФЗ “On Amendments to the Federal Law“ On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection ”and certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation on the issues of streamlining information exchange using information and telecommunication networks”.
When there was a discussion of the bill, then in the media, on the Internet there were quite a few headlines and arguments under the general meaning of “Bloggers are equated with the media.” And even after the signing of the law by the President, the majority in this spirit headlined their news. And nefiga. There is nothing similar in Federal Law No. 97. Not equating to the media. No changes are made to the Law on Mass Media.
I want to ask, everyone who wrote about “equalization”, did you even read the bill? I am sure that no, otherwise you would see that in No. 97-FZ there is not a word about the rights that the media have.
Section 47 of the Media Law provides journalists with the right:
1) to seek, request, receive and disseminate information;
2) visit government bodies and organizations, enterprises and institutions, bodies of public associations or their press services;
3) be received by officials in connection with a request for information;
4) to gain access to documents and materials, with the exception of fragments thereof, containing information constituting a state, commercial or other secret specially protected by law;
5) copy, publish, publish or otherwise reproduce documents and materials, subject to the requirements of the first part of Section 42 of this Law;
6) to make recordings, including using audio and video equipment, film and photography, with the exception of cases provided by law;
7) to visit specially protected places of natural disasters, accidents and catastrophes, riots and crowds of citizens, as well as areas in which a state of emergency is declared; attend meetings and demonstrations;
8) verify the accuracy of the information communicated to him;
9) state their personal judgments and estimates in messages and materials intended for distribution signed by him;
10) refuse to prepare a message or material contrary to his convictions, signed by him;
11) remove his signature on a message or material whose content, in his opinion, was distorted during the editorial process, or prohibit or otherwise stipulate the conditions and nature of the use of this message or material in accordance with the first part of Section 42 of this Law;
12) to distribute messages and materials prepared by him under his signature, under a pseudonym or without a signature.
In addition, they have the right to keep secret records, have the right to disseminate personal data and information about the private lives of citizens, if necessary in the public interest.
The editors have the right to request information on the activities of state bodies, local governments, organizations, public associations, their officials. Request for information is possible both orally and in writing. The requested information must be provided by the heads of these bodies, organizations and associations, their deputies, press officers or other authorized persons within their competence. And all the above bodies are required to respond to the request within 7 days.
Also, a lot of media preferences are given in the field of using copyright objects.
A blogger has the right:
1) to freely seek, receive, transmit and disseminate information in any way in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation;
2) to state on their website or website page on the Internet their personal judgments and estimates, indicating their name or pseudonym;
3) post or allow the placement on its website or website page in the Internet of texts and (or) other materials of other users of the Internet, if the placement of such texts and (or) other materials does not contradict the legislation of the Russian Federation;
4) to distribute advertising on a reimbursable basis in accordance with civil law, Federal Law of March 13, 2006 N 38-ФЗ "On Advertising" on its website or on a page on the Internet.
And that’s all! Called - feel the difference. And she is colossal. In fact, bloggers have not been given any media rights. They were not given any protection that the media have.
Honestly, I thought that equating bloggers with the media, about which our lawmakers had been shouting for two months, would be a boon.
Since article 57 of the Media Law provides journalists with good enough armor and relieves them of liability for disseminating information that is not true and discredits the honor and dignity of citizens and organizations, or which infringe on the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, or damage the health and (or) development of children , or constituting an abuse of freedom of the mass media and (or) the rights of a journalist:
1) if this information is present in mandatory messages;
2) if they are received from news agencies;
3) if they are contained in a response to a request for information or in the materials of the press services of state bodies, organizations, institutions, enterprises, bodies of public associations;
4) if they are verbatim reproduction of fragments of speeches of people's deputies at congresses and sessions of Soviets of people's deputies, delegates to congresses, conferences, plenums of public associations, as well as official speeches of officials of state bodies, organizations and public associations;
5) if they are contained in copyright works that are broadcast without prior recording, or in texts that are not subject to editing in accordance with this Law;
6) if they are verbatim reproduction of messages and materials or their fragments distributed by another mass media (except for cases of dissemination of information specified in part six of Article 4 of this Law), which may be established and held liable for this violation of the legislation of the Russian Federation about the media.
But nothing of the kind happened. There is no equating. Let me explain with an example the difference between a blogger and the media. A deputy Pupkin spoke and said from the rostrum that his parliamentary colleague was a thief and child molester. The media wrote about it, bloggers wrote about it. Pupkin is being sued. Media Correspondents and Bloggers. Media according to paragraph 4 of Art. 57 exempt from liability, no blogger.
Another example. One media outlet (No. 1) published the material, another media outlet (No. 2) reprinted it, and the blogger posted it on his page (website). A person who believes that defamatory and inaccurate information is disseminated about him in an article goes to court with media No. 2 and a blogger. Media No. 2 comes to court and refers to a reprint from media No. 1, and is relieved of liability under paragraph 6 of Art. 57, the blogger is responsible on a par with the No. 1 media.
Introduced into the law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”, Art. 10.2 not only gives a concept of what a blogger is (about this illusion below), but also establishes a list of bloggers ’obligations in paragraphs 1 and 2: to verify the accuracy of the information provided, not to spread extremism, not to slander, not to insult, not to write about privacy , do not distribute pornography, do not swear, etc.
Citizens, dear ones, I might surprise someone very much ... so this was not the case with bloggers and all other Internet users before. This is prohibited by other regulations, and the law did not make a difference between bloggers and non-bloggers, just for some reason there was such a general misconception that it is impossible (difficult) to hold a blogger accountable. And the requirements of the law "On Advertising" also apply to bloggers now ... Any lawyer who has ideas about cases of defamation, libel, insult, extremism, personal data will tell you how to find and punish an Internet scribble through a court. The last example with Navalny is a confirmation of this. There has been no anonymity on the Internet for a long time (almost none). But in order to exclude this “almost”, the “law on bloggers” was apparently adopted.
Gradually we get to the most “delicious”. Art. 10.2 “On information, information technology and information protection” now gives a concept of what a Blogger is from the point of view of the law. The owner of the site and (or) the page of the site on the Internet, on which publicly available information is posted and access to which during the day is more than three thousand users of the Internet (hereinafter referred to as the blogger).
Do you understand? I don’t. And I think so too. And the most discussed issue - and the three thousandths, who is this? How to identify a three-thousandth blogger or not, if 100 people read it today, and 5000 tomorrow ... I’ll say right away that we will find out the answer to this question when Roskomnadzor develops and approves the “methodology for determining the number of users of a website or a website’s page on the Internet per day” . While this technique is not. I can assume that they will count not only by visits, but also by subscribers, friends, etc.
True, here I have little idea how our Roskomnadzor can force, say, foreign Twitter and Facebook to set up counters, provide data to Roskomnadzor about users ... Although, in fact, they will have no choice, since if they refuse to do this, their activities in the Russian Federation will be paused. Article 10.1 obliges them to provide information upon request, and Art. 15.4 provides a whole algorithm of actions if such a requirement is not met.
How it will look in practice. Roskomnadzor sends a request to Twitter, Livejournal, Facebook and demands to provide information about such and such a user (nickname), since during monitoring they have reason to believe that the user (nickname) will fall under the law on bloggers ... Does not receive a response. The following is a penalty under Art. 7.7.10. Administrative Code of the Russian Federation “Failure to provide information or the submission of knowingly inaccurate information to a body that exercises control and supervision functions in the field of communications, information technologies and mass communications”, and then suspension of activities in the territory of the Russian Federation, blocking via URL or (most likely) through IP address .
When telling this scheme to familiar bloggers, I was countered that, like, Yandex removed the rating of bloggers and it would not be difficult for everyone else to hide their ratings, subscribers and traffic ... Ah, as naive as children. Art. 10.1, which introduces a new subject of legal relations - “The organizer of the dissemination of information on the Internet”. This is a person who carries out activities to ensure the functioning of information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers that are designed and (or) used to receive, transmit, deliver and (or) process electronic messages from Internet users. And then he endowed them with frail duties. They are not simply obliged to store information about the facts (read statistics) of the reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing of voice information, written text, images, sounds or other electronic messages from users of the Internet. But they are also required to do this within six months, to provide the specified information to authorized state bodies engaged in operational-search activities or ensuring the security of the Russian Federation, in cases established by federal laws. And most, most, most importantly, they are required to store this information on the territory of the Russian Federation. Hopefully explaining what this means is not necessary? No foreign servers, and if you want there, then duplicate here. in cases established by federal laws. And most, most, most importantly, they are required to store this information on the territory of the Russian Federation. Hopefully explaining what this means is not necessary? No foreign servers, and if you want there, then duplicate here. in cases established by federal laws. And most, most, most importantly, they are required to store this information on the territory of the Russian Federation. Hopefully explaining what this means is not necessary? No foreign servers, and if you want there, then duplicate here.
What else a blogger personally confuses me is the one who has the page, the site “access to which within a day” ... So. Stop. What does access mean? Access to any page, site on the Internet, has any user. That is, a priori any page that is not closed by privacy settings, the site is already a blog, and the one who leads it is a blogger? This makes no sense. True, further on in the text of the law, Roskomnadzor is already obligated to “approve the methodology for determining the number of users of a site or a page of a site on the Internet per day.” But you won’t throw words out of a song, a blogger is determined not by the number of users, but by the number of possible access to the site ...
Well and further briefly, how will this all work.
You have your own page on the network, no matter which page. This can be a business card site, a channel on youtube.com, an account on Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, or any site in general. X time is coming - 08/01/2014. What do you do? Nothing. Even de facto you have more than 3000 visitors, de jure you will receive the status of a blogger only after Roskomnadzor enters you into the registry of bloggers and sends you a notification that you are included in the registry and therefore must publish “your last name and initials, email address for sending him legally significant messages. ”
There must probably be some conclusion, the result of all of the above ... It will not be. Draw your own conclusions. I expressed my opinion and vision of the "law on bloggers", I need to "digest" all of this, and I can later edit and add it.
Take care of yourself.
In February, the Prosecutor General’s Office was given the opportunity to block Internet sites without a court ruling; in May, a collar and a leash were put on bloggers.
The revised version of the “Law on Bloggers”, adopted at first, shocked me (because it turned out to be completely different from what many media wrote about), and then into a stupor (because the ambiguity and vagueness of the wording is so great that how to apply this the law will be completely incomprehensible in practice).
So, closer to the point. Federal Law dated 05.05.2014 No. 97-ФЗ “On Amendments to the Federal Law“ On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection ”and certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation on the issues of streamlining information exchange using information and telecommunication networks”.
1. Media Illusion
When there was a discussion of the bill, then in the media, on the Internet there were quite a few headlines and arguments under the general meaning of “Bloggers are equated with the media.” And even after the signing of the law by the President, the majority in this spirit headlined their news. And nefiga. There is nothing similar in Federal Law No. 97. Not equating to the media. No changes are made to the Law on Mass Media.
I want to ask, everyone who wrote about “equalization”, did you even read the bill? I am sure that no, otherwise you would see that in No. 97-FZ there is not a word about the rights that the media have.
Section 47 of the Media Law provides journalists with the right:
1) to seek, request, receive and disseminate information;
2) visit government bodies and organizations, enterprises and institutions, bodies of public associations or their press services;
3) be received by officials in connection with a request for information;
4) to gain access to documents and materials, with the exception of fragments thereof, containing information constituting a state, commercial or other secret specially protected by law;
5) copy, publish, publish or otherwise reproduce documents and materials, subject to the requirements of the first part of Section 42 of this Law;
6) to make recordings, including using audio and video equipment, film and photography, with the exception of cases provided by law;
7) to visit specially protected places of natural disasters, accidents and catastrophes, riots and crowds of citizens, as well as areas in which a state of emergency is declared; attend meetings and demonstrations;
8) verify the accuracy of the information communicated to him;
9) state their personal judgments and estimates in messages and materials intended for distribution signed by him;
10) refuse to prepare a message or material contrary to his convictions, signed by him;
11) remove his signature on a message or material whose content, in his opinion, was distorted during the editorial process, or prohibit or otherwise stipulate the conditions and nature of the use of this message or material in accordance with the first part of Section 42 of this Law;
12) to distribute messages and materials prepared by him under his signature, under a pseudonym or without a signature.
In addition, they have the right to keep secret records, have the right to disseminate personal data and information about the private lives of citizens, if necessary in the public interest.
The editors have the right to request information on the activities of state bodies, local governments, organizations, public associations, their officials. Request for information is possible both orally and in writing. The requested information must be provided by the heads of these bodies, organizations and associations, their deputies, press officers or other authorized persons within their competence. And all the above bodies are required to respond to the request within 7 days.
Also, a lot of media preferences are given in the field of using copyright objects.
A blogger has the right:
1) to freely seek, receive, transmit and disseminate information in any way in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation;
2) to state on their website or website page on the Internet their personal judgments and estimates, indicating their name or pseudonym;
3) post or allow the placement on its website or website page in the Internet of texts and (or) other materials of other users of the Internet, if the placement of such texts and (or) other materials does not contradict the legislation of the Russian Federation;
4) to distribute advertising on a reimbursable basis in accordance with civil law, Federal Law of March 13, 2006 N 38-ФЗ "On Advertising" on its website or on a page on the Internet.
And that’s all! Called - feel the difference. And she is colossal. In fact, bloggers have not been given any media rights. They were not given any protection that the media have.
Honestly, I thought that equating bloggers with the media, about which our lawmakers had been shouting for two months, would be a boon.
Since article 57 of the Media Law provides journalists with good enough armor and relieves them of liability for disseminating information that is not true and discredits the honor and dignity of citizens and organizations, or which infringe on the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, or damage the health and (or) development of children , or constituting an abuse of freedom of the mass media and (or) the rights of a journalist:
1) if this information is present in mandatory messages;
2) if they are received from news agencies;
3) if they are contained in a response to a request for information or in the materials of the press services of state bodies, organizations, institutions, enterprises, bodies of public associations;
4) if they are verbatim reproduction of fragments of speeches of people's deputies at congresses and sessions of Soviets of people's deputies, delegates to congresses, conferences, plenums of public associations, as well as official speeches of officials of state bodies, organizations and public associations;
5) if they are contained in copyright works that are broadcast without prior recording, or in texts that are not subject to editing in accordance with this Law;
6) if they are verbatim reproduction of messages and materials or their fragments distributed by another mass media (except for cases of dissemination of information specified in part six of Article 4 of this Law), which may be established and held liable for this violation of the legislation of the Russian Federation about the media.
But nothing of the kind happened. There is no equating. Let me explain with an example the difference between a blogger and the media. A deputy Pupkin spoke and said from the rostrum that his parliamentary colleague was a thief and child molester. The media wrote about it, bloggers wrote about it. Pupkin is being sued. Media Correspondents and Bloggers. Media according to paragraph 4 of Art. 57 exempt from liability, no blogger.
Another example. One media outlet (No. 1) published the material, another media outlet (No. 2) reprinted it, and the blogger posted it on his page (website). A person who believes that defamatory and inaccurate information is disseminated about him in an article goes to court with media No. 2 and a blogger. Media No. 2 comes to court and refers to a reprint from media No. 1, and is relieved of liability under paragraph 6 of Art. 57, the blogger is responsible on a par with the No. 1 media.
2. The illusion of responsibility
Introduced into the law “On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection”, Art. 10.2 not only gives a concept of what a blogger is (about this illusion below), but also establishes a list of bloggers ’obligations in paragraphs 1 and 2: to verify the accuracy of the information provided, not to spread extremism, not to slander, not to insult, not to write about privacy , do not distribute pornography, do not swear, etc.
Citizens, dear ones, I might surprise someone very much ... so this was not the case with bloggers and all other Internet users before. This is prohibited by other regulations, and the law did not make a difference between bloggers and non-bloggers, just for some reason there was such a general misconception that it is impossible (difficult) to hold a blogger accountable. And the requirements of the law "On Advertising" also apply to bloggers now ... Any lawyer who has ideas about cases of defamation, libel, insult, extremism, personal data will tell you how to find and punish an Internet scribble through a court. The last example with Navalny is a confirmation of this. There has been no anonymity on the Internet for a long time (almost none). But in order to exclude this “almost”, the “law on bloggers” was apparently adopted.
3. Illusion of 3000
Gradually we get to the most “delicious”. Art. 10.2 “On information, information technology and information protection” now gives a concept of what a Blogger is from the point of view of the law. The owner of the site and (or) the page of the site on the Internet, on which publicly available information is posted and access to which during the day is more than three thousand users of the Internet (hereinafter referred to as the blogger).
Do you understand? I don’t. And I think so too. And the most discussed issue - and the three thousandths, who is this? How to identify a three-thousandth blogger or not, if 100 people read it today, and 5000 tomorrow ... I’ll say right away that we will find out the answer to this question when Roskomnadzor develops and approves the “methodology for determining the number of users of a website or a website’s page on the Internet per day” . While this technique is not. I can assume that they will count not only by visits, but also by subscribers, friends, etc.
True, here I have little idea how our Roskomnadzor can force, say, foreign Twitter and Facebook to set up counters, provide data to Roskomnadzor about users ... Although, in fact, they will have no choice, since if they refuse to do this, their activities in the Russian Federation will be paused. Article 10.1 obliges them to provide information upon request, and Art. 15.4 provides a whole algorithm of actions if such a requirement is not met.
How it will look in practice. Roskomnadzor sends a request to Twitter, Livejournal, Facebook and demands to provide information about such and such a user (nickname), since during monitoring they have reason to believe that the user (nickname) will fall under the law on bloggers ... Does not receive a response. The following is a penalty under Art. 7.7.10. Administrative Code of the Russian Federation “Failure to provide information or the submission of knowingly inaccurate information to a body that exercises control and supervision functions in the field of communications, information technologies and mass communications”, and then suspension of activities in the territory of the Russian Federation, blocking via URL or (most likely) through IP address .
When telling this scheme to familiar bloggers, I was countered that, like, Yandex removed the rating of bloggers and it would not be difficult for everyone else to hide their ratings, subscribers and traffic ... Ah, as naive as children. Art. 10.1, which introduces a new subject of legal relations - “The organizer of the dissemination of information on the Internet”. This is a person who carries out activities to ensure the functioning of information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers that are designed and (or) used to receive, transmit, deliver and (or) process electronic messages from Internet users. And then he endowed them with frail duties. They are not simply obliged to store information about the facts (read statistics) of the reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing of voice information, written text, images, sounds or other electronic messages from users of the Internet. But they are also required to do this within six months, to provide the specified information to authorized state bodies engaged in operational-search activities or ensuring the security of the Russian Federation, in cases established by federal laws. And most, most, most importantly, they are required to store this information on the territory of the Russian Federation. Hopefully explaining what this means is not necessary? No foreign servers, and if you want there, then duplicate here. in cases established by federal laws. And most, most, most importantly, they are required to store this information on the territory of the Russian Federation. Hopefully explaining what this means is not necessary? No foreign servers, and if you want there, then duplicate here. in cases established by federal laws. And most, most, most importantly, they are required to store this information on the territory of the Russian Federation. Hopefully explaining what this means is not necessary? No foreign servers, and if you want there, then duplicate here.
What else a blogger personally confuses me is the one who has the page, the site “access to which within a day” ... So. Stop. What does access mean? Access to any page, site on the Internet, has any user. That is, a priori any page that is not closed by privacy settings, the site is already a blog, and the one who leads it is a blogger? This makes no sense. True, further on in the text of the law, Roskomnadzor is already obligated to “approve the methodology for determining the number of users of a site or a page of a site on the Internet per day.” But you won’t throw words out of a song, a blogger is determined not by the number of users, but by the number of possible access to the site ...
4. Other adost
Well and further briefly, how will this all work.
You have your own page on the network, no matter which page. This can be a business card site, a channel on youtube.com, an account on Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, or any site in general. X time is coming - 08/01/2014. What do you do? Nothing. Even de facto you have more than 3000 visitors, de jure you will receive the status of a blogger only after Roskomnadzor enters you into the registry of bloggers and sends you a notification that you are included in the registry and therefore must publish “your last name and initials, email address for sending him legally significant messages. ”
There must probably be some conclusion, the result of all of the above ... It will not be. Draw your own conclusions. I expressed my opinion and vision of the "law on bloggers", I need to "digest" all of this, and I can later edit and add it.
Take care of yourself.