How will they protect children from harmful information?

    On November 29, Roskomnadzor opened a discussion on the “Concept of Children's Information Security” at the online forum with the ambiguous name WeCanTrust.Net . I tried to analyze this concept and understand what awaits us.

    The concept is 2469 pages of text with typos and poorly formatted tables. And although the concept is comprehensive - it considers all the information surrounding children, from television to household items - it is still primarily aimed at regulating the Internet so that it does not pose a risk to children from 0 years of age.

    Armed with the priority of children's rights over adult rights, the state is preparing to solve the problem of children's information security at any cost. Whether this is an adequate price and whether these measures will lead to the desired result is still in question.

    As we already know, if the state comes to the Internet to protect children, it goes to everyone. What can we and our children expect in connection with the adoption of this concept?

    Firstly, we should not have any illusions - the course on blocking on the Internet will continue.
    Although the authors of the concept admit that blocking sites is a “pursuit of an elusive shadow,” they also believe that the registry of banned sites is functioning successfully and fulfills the role of a scalpel that cuts out harmful areas of information on the Internet. Therefore, considerable attention in the concept is devoted to responses to criticism of locks, for which the authors resort to international legislative experience.

    Thus, a selective analysis of international law helps authors to justify the need for violation of freedom of speech. That is, the provisions of international laws are interpreted as permission for any restrictions on freedom of speech in order to maintain morality.

    At the same time, our researchers do not take into account additional conditions: in which cases it is possible to introduce censorship, how harm is proportional to the benefits of these restrictions. On the search for a balance of rights - child safety vs adult freedom - there is simply no question. Only the priority of the right of children to information security is unconditionally recognized.

    According to the authors of the concept, the most serious argument of opponents of blocking is that blocking by IP address entails the closure of bona fide sites adjacent to the offender. The authors of the concept recognize this argument as valid, but do not find it sufficient reason to stop blocking by IP address. Just because they do not see other measures to stop the offense.

    As for the issue of loss of Internet “connectivity” due to deletion of pages and blocking of traffic, including transit, it apparently remained incomprehensible to lawyers, therefore it is proposed to discuss it separately with specialists.

    Thus, the authors consider it “appropriate at this stage to save the procedure for blocking network addresses in Federal Law # 149”.

    The transition of prohibitive functions from the executive to the judiciary also seems impossible due to the huge volume of sites with “prohibited information”, which will lead to blocking the activities of the courts themselves.
    Moreover, in order to monitor the enforcement of the law by Internet providers, it is soon proposed to introduce “more stringent licensing requirements for the provision of communication services, providing for the mandatory provision of content filtering services”.

    In legislative terms, all the proposals of the concept also come down to prohibitive or restrictive proposals. Firstly, it concerns information about suicide. Since so far there has been criminal liability only for bringing a person to suicide, neither propaganda of suicides, nor information on methods of suicide was prohibited. Which, however, did not stop blocking sites on this basis. Now, in the Code of Administrative Offenses, it is proposed to add an article “on the promotion of suicide and the dissemination of information about methods of suicide” with liability in the form of fines and confiscation of the equipment on which this information is produced.
    It is also proposed to level out the differences between the Code of Administrative Offenses and Federal Law # 149 regarding the dissemination of information about drugs. So, now the Code of Administrative Offenses assumes responsibility only for “propaganda and illegal advertising” of drugs, and Federal Law # 149 identifies “information on methods, methods of development, manufacture and use of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances and their precursors, places of purchase of such drugs as illegal,” substances and their precursors, on methods and places of cultivation of drug-containing plants. " Since the authors could not determine which of the formulations is better, a Solomon decision was made - to supplement each of them to alignment, i.e. The Code of Administrative Offenses should be supplemented with a ban on informing, and Federal Law # 149 with a ban on propaganda. That is, it turns out that there shouldn’t be any information about drugs at all - neither good nor bad.

    It is unlikely that this approach can be called adequate. Indeed, according to the results of studies presented in the same concept, almost 70% of schoolchildren aged 6-12 call the Internet the main source of information. Parents as a source of information are in fourth place, after friends and school. It can be assumed that for high school students this percentage will be even higher. Therefore, if adolescents cannot get any objective and scientifically confirmed information about drugs, for example from the same on Wikipedia, then they will receive it from “authoritative” sources on the street, where there are no restrictions on the dissemination of information.

    Surprisingly, the above blocks of the concept are in conflict with the psychological research presented here on the problem of protecting children from harmful information. The study says a lot about the need for a pedagogical, psychological, historical and cultural approach to assessing the usefulness and harmfulness of information. Here, psychologists make recommendations not to delete potentially harmful information, but depending on the cultural and historical context and level of development of the child, give him clarifications of what he sees.
    The recommendations of psychologists are essentially ignored. And thus, in general, in the concept, the concept of “information security” is replaced, which should include not only a restriction on harmful information, but also access to useful, “prohibition of the distribution of prohibited information”.

    The very phrase “prohibited information” itself is very doubtful. Information is an objective fact that does not disappear anywhere, no matter what prohibitions are imposed on it. Information is an integral part of a phenomenon, as long as there is a phenomenon or a memory of it, it is difficult to do anything with the information.

    The question of determining the correct terminology is half the solution to the problem. The false approach is already laid down here, for example, using the definition of “information production”. The approach to “works of art” as a “product” also gives rise to the possibility of restricting access to it, regardless of the “artistic value”.
    If the authors of the concept were thinking in terms of “artistic value”, “works of culture”, then perhaps they would remember that even fairy tales for the youngest children sometimes cause fear, horror or panic. This is the psychological and therapeutic effect of these ancient works - to teach you to control your emotions. But according to the logic of the “protectors” of children, now any fairy tale in which good does not conquer evil can be identified as “information products”, “harmful to the health, moral and spiritual development of children”.

    Therefore, the proposal to recommend providers voluntarily commit themselves to protecting children from “harmful information” seems somewhat unsound. How providers can take on the role of parents and teachers in evaluating information is completely unclear. Moreover, at different ages, different information can be called harmful. Kids can be disappointed that Santa Claus does not exist. And teens will already be useful to be informed about sexual relationships. In the end, children themselves sometimes produce information that can injure other children. This applies to Internet bullying, and uploading various videos.

    As we can see, the concept as a whole raises a lot of questions and concerns. However, it should be noted that it at least declared a desire to move from a "prohibiting" strategy to a "developing" one. In the legal part of the concept, even an analysis of John Barlow’s manifest on cyberspace independence was discovered. The authors note that he “for all its ambiguity and inconsistency, suggests that when creating mechanisms for regulating and self-regulating the Internet, one should not forget about the basic principles - freedom of speech, human right to access information, and the right to self-expression of a person”. This suggests that the authorities are at least trying to understand the Internet.

    But unfortunately, so far the “developing” strategy remains only a wish, and the whole spirit of the concept remains mostly prohibitive.

    Obviously, children's information security is an important and serious problem. But it’s also obvious that blocking sites and expanding the range of “prohibited information”, which is not accessible not only to children but also to adults, like any prohibitive measures on the Internet, cannot lead to long-term positive results, especially considering that the information in The network doubles every year. This means that with this approach, the state is doomed to be in the role of catching up, and adults - in the role of children.

    It has recently been confirmed that by the end of 2013 a Cyrillic domain will appear. CHILDREN. At its base, it would be possible to create an island for child safety. It is important to understand that the state itself is not able to cope with this task. It seems that the freedom-loving Internet can count on weakening regulation by the state only if it takes on the issue of protecting children.

    So far, only 5 comments have been left on the Rokomnadzor forum (We Can Believe No) . And if we don’t express our opinions, concerns and suggestions there, the ILV will happily report that the public discussions were successful, there were no objections. Children are in danger! Bob, cut the cable!

    UPD1: Added discussion threads on the ILV forum
    Against expanding the list of prohibited information
    Age-related re-


    designation Creating a children's Internet

    UPD2: Still new discussion threads on the ILV forum.
    The essence of the concept The
    legitimacy of this public discussion
    I will open the Code on any page


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