About protecting children from information

On December 29, 2010, federal law No. 436-ФЗ On the Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development was adopted. It will enter into force on September 1, 2012. This law applies to almost everyone who places any information on the Internet (and not only on the Internet), so it makes sense to briefly review the provisions of the law.
You can read the text here , and below are comments and thoughts about.

By the way, a child under the age of 18 is considered a child in our country, so the term “children” should not be taken as referring only to very young people.

Someone is lucky and the law does not apply to him. No need to think about protecting children to those who disseminate scientific, scientific, technical, and statistical information; products of significant historical, artistic or other cultural value to society; advertising. Libraries, museums and archives were also lucky - access to information in their open funds cannot be limited.

The advertisers, however, were not very lucky - they have their own laws, which also impose rather strict restrictions. Pretending to be a library, in fact not being one, will also not be so simple - the library user must present identification documents, and children under 14 are parents' documents. Products of significant value - most likely, it is implied that they are included in the respective registers. Conducting an erotic film and action movie as a scientific one also fails.

The law applies to everything: printed matter, the Internet, computer programs, information from content providers of mobile networks, etc.

For the first time, legislation defines pornography. Pornography is information presented in the form of a naturalistic image or description of a person’s genitals and / or sexual intercourse, or sexual activity comparable to sexual intercourse, including such an act committed against an animal. At the same time, a naturalistic image or description is an image or description in any form and using any means of a person, animal, individual parts of the human body and (or) animal, action (inaction), event, phenomenon, their consequences with fixing attention to details, anatomical details and (or) physiological processes.

That is, pornography actually recognizes any fairly detailed image of the genitals. The image of a naked man without a clear demonstration of the genitals, most likely, will not be recognized as pornography - and thanks for that.

Under no circumstances should children show products:

• Encouraging children to commit actions that pose a threat to their life and (or) health, including causing harm to their health, suicide;
• that can cause children to desire to use narcotic drugs, psychotropic and (or) intoxicants, tobacco products, alcoholic and alcohol-containing products, beer and drinks made on its basis, take part in gambling, engage in prostitution, vagrancy or begging -  here you can take almost any demonstration or description of the smoking or drinking process;
• substantiating or justifying the admissibility of violence and (or) cruelty or encouraging to carry out violent acts against people or animals;
• denying family values ​​and forming disrespect for parents and (or) other family members - the wording “family values” is interesting here, which, most likely, will be interpreted as conservatively as possible (greetings to gays, lesbians, childfree and inveterate bachelors) ;
• exculpatory wrongful conduct;
• containing foul language - hello to Tyoma Lebedev ;
• containing pornographic information

At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this list, but do not forget that the interpretation of everything that is written in the law will be dealt with by the so-called “experts”: these are people with special knowledge in the field of pedagogy, age-related psychology, age-related physiology, and children's psychiatry. Moreover, representatives of the manufacturer of information products are not allowed to be included in the expert commission. It is not difficult to imagine what kind of experts they would be: 99%, that it would turn out to be elderly prudes who would faint from toys like Counter Strike - after all, there you can play for terrorists!

In addition, this list is not exhaustive . Further in the law, age restrictions are introduced: up to 6, from 6 to 12, from 12 to 16, older than 16. Accordingly, this list also includes what is prohibited for children over 16.

"Children under 16", now we can no longer face:

• an image or description of an accident, accident, disaster, illness (and if their consequences are truthfully shown and described - this is strictly 18+);
• non-episodic depiction or description of cruelty and (or) violence (with the exception of that applied in cases of protecting the rights of citizens and the interests of society or the state protected by law - i.e., it is possible to show how the police shoot a criminal or a Soviet soldier at a fascist, but vice versa - impossible); in addition, if violence is shown without expressing compassion for the victim and without condemning cruelty - this is strictly 18+;
• any information about narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances - that is, you can’t even tell about their harmful effects;
• any abuse, not even obscene;
• non-episodic descriptions of the sexual relations of a man and a woman (moreover, namely men and women); at the same time, descriptions that “exploit interest in sex” and descriptions of actions of a sexual nature are strictly 18+.

Total - almost any film and any book will fall into the category of 16+, or even 18+. In order not to be unfounded:

• Dostoevsky, “Crime and Punishment” - 18+ (naturalistic depiction of the process of deprivation of life);
• Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes Books - 18+ (drug use);
• Stevenson, “Treasure Island” - 18+ (illegal behavior - piracy is justified);
• Operation Y - 18+ (violence is shown without expressing compassion for the victim and (or) negative, condemning the attitude to cruelty).

(In parentheses, you can see that the above falls under the clause on products “that have significant historical, artistic or other cultural value to society” - but this is not the point, but that they are completely innocent and have been considered for many years not only suitable for children, and even specially designed for them works intended by law fall into the category of "adult only").

Before putting products into circulation on the territory of the Russian Federation (including via the Internet, so hosting abroad will not help), you must:

• Assign products an age rating in accordance with the law.
• If the product falls into the section “over 18” and will be located in “places accessible for children” - take administrative, technical, organizational and other measures to protect children from the product. We have “public places in which the child’s access to and (or) the child’s presence in which is not prohibited, including public places in which the child has access to media products and (or) information products placed in information and telecommunication networks ". Roughly speaking, if a child can gain access to information uncontrollably, protective measures must be taken. What measures these will be is not yet known, but given that the government will develop them, one can already begin to be afraid.

For violation of the provisions of this law, liability will be established, it is quite possible that in some cases criminal.

The question of what to do if the content distributor is located outside the Russian Federation is not yet clearly reflected in the law. Most likely, they will block.

It should also be borne in mind that when resolving all judicial, and even more so administrative cases concerning minors, the decision-maker will obviously be biased. Because "these are children." And to prove something, given the abundance of evaluation terms and the presence of an expert opinion (which, I recall, with 99% probability old prudes will do without the participation of the creator or distributor of the content) will be practically unrealistic.

So it goes.

UPD:As it turned out, the law was developed at the Research Institute of the problems of strengthening the rule of law and the rule of law under the General Prosecutor of the Russian Federation. This explains the delusional wording.