Comments and likes: what they can fire, fine or imprison for in Russia and not only

    Hasty words can cost reputation, work and freedom. The same applies to social networks: a careless tweet or comment on Facebook can cause an avalanche of public censure and interest from law enforcement agencies.

    This article is about how not to get to the place of rest, how to get ten years for a bad joke and how to lose your job because of racism on Twitter or photos with a bottle of Vkontakte vodka.

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    Dmitry Anisimov was the head of the sports broadcasting directorate of VGTRK before these tweets.

    Criminal proceedings


    One of the first high-profile criminal cases in Russia related to statements on social networks was the Terentyev case - the trial of blogger Savva Terentyev from Syktyvkar . He commented on a post in LiveJournal about seizing hard drives from computers in the editorial office of the Iskra newspaper that he hates police officers and expressed his opinion about people who go to work in law enforcement agencies. To this, he added a proposal to burn police officers, which made it possible to regard his words as “aimed at inciting hatred or hostility towards a social group” - namely, police officers.



    In 2011, an activist of the “Russian National Union” Vitold Filippov, the court sentenced him to a fine of 1,000 rubles for “propaganda of Nazi symbols”, namely for like under the screenshot of the film “American History X” with Edward Norton with a swastika on his chest. At the same time, the film is not banned for showing in Russia, it was broadcast on federal channels and was nominated for an Oscar.

    In 2014, the State Duma approved a bill according to which prison sentences were imposed for public calls for extremism via the Internet.


    The swastika in the screenshot is smeared to avoid

    In 2013, eighteen-year-old Justin Carter left a commenton Facebook: “Yes, I ******* on the head. I think I’ll shoot the kindergarten, I will watch how the blood of the innocent will pour, and I will eat another beating heart from one of them. ” He accompanied the text with the abbreviation LOL, but this did not save him - a resident of Canada reported the incident to the police after she found Carter's address and determined that he lives near elementary school. The events occurred two months after the shooting of Adam Lans by students at the Sandy Hook School in Connecticut. The guy was facing a prison term of ten years. The last two years, Carter spent first in prison, then under house arrest, under which he still remains. His parents collect signatures on Change.org , but that doesn't help.

    The court recognized the sarcasm of Carter as a terrorist threat.

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    The Briton Matthew Woods was more fortunate in 2012: he left a few jokes about the little girls who disappeared a few years before. Jokes Wood looked at the Sickipedia resource. The public did not like his behavior, about fifty people reported him to the police. The court sentenced him to three months in prison.

    Woods joke objects: April Jones, missing in 2012, and Madeline McCann, missing in 2007. An example of a joke: “I woke up this morning in a big van with two beautiful girls, I found April in a hopeless place.”

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    In 2013, Cameron D'Ambrosio wrote a rap song that mentioned the bombings in Boston. The prosecutor threatened him with twenty years in prison, but the court refused to punish himbut he spent a month behind bars during the trial.

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    Two more British tourists traveled to the United States and tweeted the word “destroy” with the meanings of “hanging out” and “annealing”, but law enforcement took this joke literally . In addition, tourists wanted to dig Marilyn in Monroe. At the airport, the British were searched for shovels, then deported from the country. “I explained to them that they misunderstood the meaning of my tweet, but they only answered me“ you really screwed up with him, man, ”the main character of this story told.

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    In September 2015, the Investigative Committee of Belarus posted a memo on what is considered the spread of pornography. This offense falls under Article 343 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus: “Distribution of pornographic materials or objects”. For these actions they can be sentenced to a prison term of up to three years.

    In August 2015, a resident of Gomel left a commentary “Fu, what disgusting!” Under a porn movie and fell under this criminal article, but she was granted amnesty in connection with her residence in the radioactive contamination zone.



    Layoffs


    Scott Bartosievich, who had put his soul into Chrysler’s communications, was mistaken by the window and wrote a message on the company’s official twitter: “Detroit is an automobile city, but they didn’t learn how to use it * obscene word *. After that, Scott was fired and was not taken back. Then he said that he was sorry that one hundred and forty characters crossed out all his work in the company.

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    Ethan Chahor, former chief technology officer for the Jeb Bush election campaign, suffered in 2015 from a tweet he wrote in 2009. Journalists found tweets with the word "whore" in relation to women and homophobic statements. He had to apologize, but this mistake helped him develop an application that can clean the Internet for you .





    In Virginia in 2012, the sheriff fired employees"For actions that impede the harmonious and harmonious work of the unit." They jumped on the page of the political opponent of his boss, and the judge who considered this case, recognized the sheriff. Although the US Congress could not infringe on freedom of speech, the judge did not attribute “like” to it. The judge stated: “Clicking on the Like button is too easy. This cannot be attributed to freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is something more serious. And here it’s just a button, it’s not some kind of statement on the merits, which can be protected by the Constitution. ”

    Dmitry Anisimov was the head of the sports broadcasting directorate of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company, when in August 2013 he tweeted about the defeat of the Russian football team in a match with Northern Ireland. He blamed Peter Channel for the defeat of Channel One and the "rotten city." Anisimov apologized, deleted the account and quit.



    In April 2015, an Australian SBS journalist fired a sports reporter for tweets about veterans of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) that Scott MacIntyre posted on Veterans Day on April 25. He recalled the reprisals without trial, rape and theft committed by soldiers. SBS called these statements disrespectful and contrary to the rules of conduct on social networks





    Another sports commentator, Demian Goddard of Toronto, supported a negative view of gay marriage. For this, the television channel fired him.

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    Baseball player Mike Baksik congratulated him on his victory over the dirty Mexicans team , after which the radio station where he worked parted with him. An

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    Aeroflot flight attendant after the Superjet-100 crashed in Indonesia on May 9, 2012, tweeted 45 passengers on board, in which she laughed at the tragedy and said that “it’s a pity, not in Aeroflot, it would have decreased by one.” The next day, Ekaterina Solovyova “agreed by the parties” broke up with the employer. After this story, Solovyova became the office manager of the VKontakte Moscow office .



    A year later, Aeroflot fired another stewardess - Tatyana Kozlenko. She confirmed the mark “Vkontakte” in the photo, where the flight attendant’s hand shows the back of passengers the middle finger. The girl admitted her mistake and wrote a letter of resignation of her own free will. Later, the general director of the company reinstated the flight attendant with a trial period of six months.



    We should also talk about the judges. A judge in the Russian Federation is a person empowered by the Constitution with the power to administer justice on a professional basis. A judge makes important decisions, protects the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, has independence and is subject only to the Constitution and the Laws. And the judge should avoid everything that could belittle the authority of the judiciary.

    For example, a judge should avoid photographing with a bottle of vodka. This was not taken into account by Irina Lewandovskaya, a judge from Ulan-Ude, when she uploaded such photographs. The Judicial Ethics Commission found these photos unacceptable, and the judge lost her good job.



    A recent story with the corpse of a shot criminal , photo of which was posted by the official representative of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Elena Alekseeva, has not yet been completed. Under pressure from bloggers, Alekseeva removed the photo from Instagram .



    Employees must be loyal to the authority in which they work. Deputy Minister of Economic Development Sergei Belyakov on Facebook in August this year said that he was ashamed of the decision to freeze the funded part of the pension. He was fired the next day . “Namely, in connection with the civil service, it is forbidden for a civil servant to make public statements, judgments and assessments, including in the media, regarding the activities of state bodies, their leaders, including decisions of a higher state body or a state body in which a civil an employee shall replace a civil service position if this is not part of his official duties (clause 10 of part 1 of Article 17 of the Federal Law). ”



    How to deal with it?


    First of all, you need to think twice before writing something on the Internet. You need to understand what condition you are in, whether you drank too much, whether it is worth postponing the publication of an article or comment for several minutes or even hours. Try not to joke with minors, not to make statements about racism, not to offend people. Try not to violate the laws of the Russian Federation on the Internet.

    The Internet has ceased to be completely anonymous. When you do not hide your actions in it, when you write your real name, post your photo on the avatar, all your words can be used against you just like in real life. And not only words, but likes with sher.

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