I closely monitored the reaction to the situation with the “blocking” of Artemy Lebedev’s post in LiveJournal and I want to bring some clarity. At the same time, I will talk about how I went to a meeting in Roskomnadzor together with representatives of the industry.



Note:we (the Anti-Corruption Fund) have never been and never will be supporters of the existence of a registry of sites containing information prohibited for distribution in Russia (hereinafter, for brevity, I will call it the “forbidden registry”). We are absolutely sure that attempts by the state to regulate this issue in general (I use the words “general regulation” to separate this point from the need to prosecute individual drug distributors, etc.) both create significant problems in the industry and, vice versa, attract significant attention to "Forbidden topics", thereby unknowingly advertising them. For us, the ideal, but obviously utopian situation is when there are no registries and blacklists, and distributors of drugs and child pornography on the Internet are individually prosecuted by law enforcement agencies.

However, dreams have little in common with reality, therefore, at the moment, our primary goals in this matter are: through interaction with government agencies and various companies (providers, hosting), to achieve a change in practice in favor of only sites with forbidden information falling into the registry and at the same time “random blocking” of honest resources was not allowed.

Roskomnadzor - only registry operator

To begin with, let's clarify one important thing: Roskomnadzor has never banished anyone. Roskomnadzor is only a registry operator, it does not make decisions on the prohibition of content on certain sites, this is done by the relevant authorities (Federal Drug Control Service, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rospotrebnadzor). Therefore, to declare that "Roskomnadzor has moved to a new level of insanity" is completely incorrect. This is doubly useless because the true authors of the prohibition of the sensational videothis reaction is not heard, because it is not addressed to them. It so happened that Roskomnadzor made a scapegoat in all situations of blocking resources. And in addition, this is unfair to Roskomnadzor itself, since they just understand all the problems of the situation, are ready to constantly meet with the industry and discuss how to solve these problem situations, they themselves took the initiative to create a “deliberative body” to resolve such disputed situations ( when it is completely obvious that, for example, Rospotrebnadzor made an absurd decision to prohibit content, and Roskomnadzor does not have the authority to cancel this decision). Plus Maxim Ksenzov Ksenzov , Deputy. The head of Roskomnadzor easily makes contact with users via the Internet (twitter, skype) and, as you remember, alreadyanswered questions of users of Habrahabr . Can you imagine that one of the deputy heads of the Federal Drug Control Service, the Ministry of Internal Affairs or Rospotrebnadzor could so easily answer user questions?

Meeting at Roskomnadzor January 17

In order not to bore you with the boring details of the discussion, I will immediately make the most important.

Advisory body to resolve disputes

From Roskomnadzor, a proposal was made to create a consultative body, a working group to resolve disputes (as an example: absurd decisions about the prohibition of content). In what form and composition this body can be created is the subject of further discussions.

Three working days, not three days

Roskomnadzor also ensured that the rules of interaction between Roskomnadzor and hosting, site owners were amended: now to eliminate violations (blocking content to prevent the resource from being blacklisted), it will be given not three days, but three working days . The understanding that even three working days is very small exists in Roskomnadzor. But then again, to establish what time frame for the adoption of measures would be more appropriate to prescribe, further meetings and discussions with industry representatives are needed.

"Accreditation" of hosting at Roskomnadzor

This is also a proposal from Roskomnadzor. Here we are not talking about some kind of “licensing” of hosting. It's about closer acquaintance of Roskomnadzor with existing hosting. This is necessary so that when a decision appears on the availability of prohibited content on one of the sites, Roskomnadzor can quickly contact the hosting and inform them about it, thereby preventing the site and network IP address from being blacklisted (which is fraught with the fact that some providers will block the entire IP address as a whole).
Once again: this is not a “coercion” and not a “coercion”. The lack of hosting in the list of “accredited”, or, if you like, “trusted list”, is fraught only with a slower interaction with Roskomnadzor. De facto, such a “list” already exists - in the form of “personal contacts” with representatives of large hosting and resources (Google, Livejournal, etc.).

How can I get into the list of “trusted” hosting?

It was proposed to develop a certain questionnaire on the Roskomnadzor website, where hosting, a large resource can provide information about itself, provide operational contacts, after which it will be included in the list of “trusted” ones. This form is currently under development.

What is the advantage of hosting clients from the fact that their hosting is in the list of "trusted"?

The owner of an honest resource, knowing that the hosting used by him is on the list of “accredited with Roskomnadzor”, can be sure that he will not become a victim of “accidental blocking”, when a really forbidden site will be on the same IP with him, will be blacklisted and as a result, IP will be filtered by some providers.

Other problems arising from the enforcement of the registry law

At the meeting, industry representatives handed over to Roskomnadzor a number of problematic issues that need to be addressed. This includes the deadlines for fulfilling the requirements to block illegal content, and the procedure for appealing decisions on the availability of forbidden content (now the “defendant” is faced only with the fact that it is forbidden, and he does not receive the reasoning part of the decision, respectively, and cannot appeal against it in a substantive way), and the problem with filtering IP addresses, and the problem of blocking forbidden resources on the "clouds" (where the IP address can change dynamically quickly).
 

A bit about suicide propaganda and Rospotrebnadzor

As I wrote at the beginning of the post, the decision on the availability of suicide propaganda is not made by Roskomnadzor at all, but by Rospotrebnadzor .

What is this organ? For ease of understanding: these are former sanitary epidemiological stations that have become a federal service and have additionally taken over a number of functions from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation (regarding consumer protection).

According to this definition alone, the agency is so far from understanding the specifics of the Internet, technology, etc. This is also evident in the decisions made: each new decision on the availability of suicide propaganda is more absurd than the previous one.

Anti-Corruption Fund plans to address the problems of the conclusions of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare

Now we are preparing requests to Rospotrebnadzor about what criteria, methods their experts determine the presence of suicide propaganda in the content in question. After receiving the answer, we may write an appeal to the prosecutor’s office, in which we indicate the need for more careful monitoring of the decisions of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare, leading to such scandals.

A bit about pornography and more global plans

The penal code contains article 242 introducing liability for the dissemination of pornography. Most often it is used against owners of CD stores, films, when they establish the fact of selling pornography during a test purchase. But in Russian legislation there is no clear description of what constitutes pornography and how it differs from erotica (the sale of which is not prohibited). Accordingly, in order to prove the fact of the sale of pornography specifically, the Investigative Committee, when investigating these crimes, sends the seized material to the expert council (not to the forensic center), which includes representatives of culture, healthcare, etc. This advice looks at the material provided and concludes: is it pornography?

Our suggestion is to take away from Rospotrebnadzor the functions of making decisions on the availability of suicide propaganda and pass it on to this council. Make it permanent at the forensic center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (due to the difficulty of establishing the fact of propaganda of suicide ).

Note: many will say “why?” it’s necessary to delete this criterion from the list of prohibited ones. ” We agree with you, but again, we proceed from the understanding that we certainly cannot achieve such cardinal changes (there is no political will on the part of the relevant individuals). Therefore, it is necessary to at least improve and correct what is now.

It is clear that such a seizure of a function from one department, their transfer to another is a huge, complex, lengthy work. Therefore, we still have a series of meetings with deputies of the State Duma, members of the government and the open government of the Russian Federation. Moreover, not so long ago, Mikhail Abyzov met with representatives of Rospil regarding the fight against corruption in public procurement.

We are also preparing a request to the Forensic Science Center under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia about whether there are methods for determining suicide propaganda, what criteria are there.

Thank you for your patience to read such a long post :)