July 31, 2012 at 12:58Changes to the law "On the protection of children from the Internet." Parse corrections essentially
To say that the Russian-language segment of the Internet is excited by recent amendments to the so-called law “On the Protection of Children from the Internet” (its full name is Federal Law of the Russian Federation of July 28, 2012 N139-ФЗ “On Amendments to the Federal Law“ On Protection of Children from information that is harmful to their health and development “and certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation” ) - to say nothing. The public is literally in full swing, discussing the law. From the moment the first information about him appeared, I also follow the "process", but I did not dare to leave a note on the hub. The fact is that until now the information was extremely incomplete (and therefore theoretically false) and it was difficult to say anything essentially. Now the law is published and I am ready to comment on it.
I will say right away that this time, as in the case of commenting on the law “On tax on discs,” I will consider the issue purely from a legal point of view, that is, with an assessment of its real capabilities and procedures. For those who are interested in the subjective point of view, I can explain that I do not see much harm from the law. Of course, he causes certain concerns, but, in my opinion, the talk of total censorship of the Runet is too strained. Not only that, the law itself at the moment practically gives no leverage. And that's why…
And so, on July 30, 2012, that is, yesterday, the notorious amendments to the law came into force, which, according to some, put an end to freedom of speech in the Russian segment of the Internet. But what does he do in fact? By the way, I’ll immediately make a clarification: in this article, by the term “law” I mean the very law “On the Protection of Children ...”, and the amendments are just what was recently adopted. And so, the amendments consist of 4 articles, and the first one has almost nothing to do with us - it concerns the clarification of certain terms, the rating system for television broadcasts and the examination of information products. However, it is worth noting that thanks to this article, at least some control over the broadcasts and films shown will appear on television. Weak, of course, but nonetheless. But back to our question.In this light, article 2 is of interest, which prescribes the obligation of providers to restrict (and, by the way, resume) access to information (that is, to sites) . But the restriction procedure is already indicated in article 3 and here, in fact, all the salt is contained.
But first again a digression. Recently, the topic of the amendments indicated in the article has come under the arm with one large provider, namely Beeline, which may cause incorrect thoughts that the law is already being applied. Yes, it was Beeline that recently so zealously took on blocking various sites, but in fact, these events have nothing to do with these amendments. The thing is that no one has repealed the law “On countering extremist activity”, according to which a list of extremist materials is in force (compiled by the Ministry of Justice). In principle, many people know this even so, but I want to focus on two things: firstly, sites that fall under extremist blocks for a long time and, as you can see, this has not yet led to total censorship (although, in due time that law made no less noise, than described by me now), and, secondly, at the moment, according to the law "On the Protection of Children from the Internet", work is not being conducted at all. Simply, I repeat, there are still no levers to do this.
Why is that? Let us return to the third article of the amendments. In accordance with it, the authorized bodies should organize a “Unified Register of domain names, indexes of pages on Internet sites and network addresses that allow identifying sites on the Internet that contain information the distribution of which is prohibited in the Russian Federation”. There is a simple essence behind this long name: someone (either the Ministry of Justice, or the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media - I can’t say for sure) will compile lists of domain names, addresses and individual pages on the Internet that have been declared illegal by the decision of the court or authorized body . If briefly. The essence, as you know, is in the details. In fact, the process is not automatic at all. Initially, only individual pages are considered illegal on which the relevant material was found and, accordingly, these pages are indicated in the court ruling or the decision of the state agency. Upon the entry into force of the above decisions, the site’s owner Roskomnadzor will be sent a notification to which the owner must respond within 24 hours. If the materials are not deleted per day, then the entire site will be added to the “black list”. Here, of course, many they may notice that they say a day is too little. But the fact remains: there is time for a reaction, there is an opportunity to avoid getting into the registry, that is, it is possible to combat intentional bullying of a site, for example, by competitors.
Move on. The site is still blacklisted. Now the “letter of happiness” is already going to the provider, which, in fact, is obliged to restrict access on its own. Here, however, the amendments allowed options, since, according to them, requirements can be presented both to the hosting for the purpose of removing the site, and to the provider in order to block access to the site for its subscribers. How exactly should authorized persons act and the sequence of actions in the amendments is not spelled out. This is one of the blank spots that clearly needs to be improved. By the way, how the register will be organized and whether it will be public is also not said. In principle, it is these two points that can cause confusion, and its outcome is difficult to calculate (options are possible, starting from “we beat everything that moves” and ending with “well, I could not, I could not”). But this is all in the future, but until the registry is created,And without a registry, working with an updated law is impossible in principle, because there is no reason to block sites, nor persons who will have to do this.
And finally. As for the possibility of excluding a resource from the black list, everything is standard: since the resource is blocked in accordance with the decision of the court or state agency, these decisions must be challenged (fortunately, the registry provides for the possibility of adding or removing sites). But this is a topic for another discussion.
PS In Orel opened a case for extremist statements on the Internet. Signs of extremism were found in several sections of the rather popular Internet portal in the Oryol region, the press service of the regional SC IC reported. It was established that in the spring of this year, these materials were posted on the site by an unidentified person in an unidentified place, the press service of the department reports. “The criminal investigation is ongoing.”This is about website ratings. Ordinary investigators, without any special knowledge, found somewhere someone’s posts there and got excited. The thing, however, is likely to fall apart, but not the fact that they will not seize the server, which then disappears in an unknown direction. This is an example of working with extremist sites. Compare it with the system provided for by the amendments, about which I wrote above. I don’t know about you, but at least I can say: at least in theory, the state has taken a big step forward. Yes, judges can also be mistaken, and the blocked addresses belong not only to “malicious” sites, but at least there is a system in which it is known who, where, when and what it will be. It remains to understand how it all works.
UPDATE: In order to make the article more informative, glazkovaI asked for a link to a similar analysis of the law, which I’m doing (in this post I’ll analyze the things that I didn’t analyze, so I think it will be useful to get acquainted with it for the sake of completeness).
I will say right away that this time, as in the case of commenting on the law “On tax on discs,” I will consider the issue purely from a legal point of view, that is, with an assessment of its real capabilities and procedures. For those who are interested in the subjective point of view, I can explain that I do not see much harm from the law. Of course, he causes certain concerns, but, in my opinion, the talk of total censorship of the Runet is too strained. Not only that, the law itself at the moment practically gives no leverage. And that's why…
And so, on July 30, 2012, that is, yesterday, the notorious amendments to the law came into force, which, according to some, put an end to freedom of speech in the Russian segment of the Internet. But what does he do in fact? By the way, I’ll immediately make a clarification: in this article, by the term “law” I mean the very law “On the Protection of Children ...”, and the amendments are just what was recently adopted. And so, the amendments consist of 4 articles, and the first one has almost nothing to do with us - it concerns the clarification of certain terms, the rating system for television broadcasts and the examination of information products. However, it is worth noting that thanks to this article, at least some control over the broadcasts and films shown will appear on television. Weak, of course, but nonetheless. But back to our question.In this light, article 2 is of interest, which prescribes the obligation of providers to restrict (and, by the way, resume) access to information (that is, to sites) . But the restriction procedure is already indicated in article 3 and here, in fact, all the salt is contained.
But first again a digression. Recently, the topic of the amendments indicated in the article has come under the arm with one large provider, namely Beeline, which may cause incorrect thoughts that the law is already being applied. Yes, it was Beeline that recently so zealously took on blocking various sites, but in fact, these events have nothing to do with these amendments. The thing is that no one has repealed the law “On countering extremist activity”, according to which a list of extremist materials is in force (compiled by the Ministry of Justice). In principle, many people know this even so, but I want to focus on two things: firstly, sites that fall under extremist blocks for a long time and, as you can see, this has not yet led to total censorship (although, in due time that law made no less noise, than described by me now), and, secondly, at the moment, according to the law "On the Protection of Children from the Internet", work is not being conducted at all. Simply, I repeat, there are still no levers to do this.
Why is that? Let us return to the third article of the amendments. In accordance with it, the authorized bodies should organize a “Unified Register of domain names, indexes of pages on Internet sites and network addresses that allow identifying sites on the Internet that contain information the distribution of which is prohibited in the Russian Federation”. There is a simple essence behind this long name: someone (either the Ministry of Justice, or the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media - I can’t say for sure) will compile lists of domain names, addresses and individual pages on the Internet that have been declared illegal by the decision of the court or authorized body . If briefly. The essence, as you know, is in the details. In fact, the process is not automatic at all. Initially, only individual pages are considered illegal on which the relevant material was found and, accordingly, these pages are indicated in the court ruling or the decision of the state agency. Upon the entry into force of the above decisions, the site’s owner Roskomnadzor will be sent a notification to which the owner must respond within 24 hours. If the materials are not deleted per day, then the entire site will be added to the “black list”. Here, of course, many they may notice that they say a day is too little. But the fact remains: there is time for a reaction, there is an opportunity to avoid getting into the registry, that is, it is possible to combat intentional bullying of a site, for example, by competitors.
Move on. The site is still blacklisted. Now the “letter of happiness” is already going to the provider, which, in fact, is obliged to restrict access on its own. Here, however, the amendments allowed options, since, according to them, requirements can be presented both to the hosting for the purpose of removing the site, and to the provider in order to block access to the site for its subscribers. How exactly should authorized persons act and the sequence of actions in the amendments is not spelled out. This is one of the blank spots that clearly needs to be improved. By the way, how the register will be organized and whether it will be public is also not said. In principle, it is these two points that can cause confusion, and its outcome is difficult to calculate (options are possible, starting from “we beat everything that moves” and ending with “well, I could not, I could not”). But this is all in the future, but until the registry is created,And without a registry, working with an updated law is impossible in principle, because there is no reason to block sites, nor persons who will have to do this.
And finally. As for the possibility of excluding a resource from the black list, everything is standard: since the resource is blocked in accordance with the decision of the court or state agency, these decisions must be challenged (fortunately, the registry provides for the possibility of adding or removing sites). But this is a topic for another discussion.
PS In Orel opened a case for extremist statements on the Internet. Signs of extremism were found in several sections of the rather popular Internet portal in the Oryol region, the press service of the regional SC IC reported. It was established that in the spring of this year, these materials were posted on the site by an unidentified person in an unidentified place, the press service of the department reports. “The criminal investigation is ongoing.”This is about website ratings. Ordinary investigators, without any special knowledge, found somewhere someone’s posts there and got excited. The thing, however, is likely to fall apart, but not the fact that they will not seize the server, which then disappears in an unknown direction. This is an example of working with extremist sites. Compare it with the system provided for by the amendments, about which I wrote above. I don’t know about you, but at least I can say: at least in theory, the state has taken a big step forward. Yes, judges can also be mistaken, and the blocked addresses belong not only to “malicious” sites, but at least there is a system in which it is known who, where, when and what it will be. It remains to understand how it all works.
UPDATE: In order to make the article more informative, glazkovaI asked for a link to a similar analysis of the law, which I’m doing (in this post I’ll analyze the things that I didn’t analyze, so I think it will be useful to get acquainted with it for the sake of completeness).