Blogger collar

In the case of the so-called Bloggers Act, I specifically made it taboo for myself to read the text of the bill until it became law. That is, it was not discussed in several readings, adopted by the State Duma and signed by the President. Why throw beads and waste your emotions? It was clear that such a law would be passed. Over the past few years, there has been a steady legislative trend aimed at introducing essentially censorship on the Internet. Censorship is tough. The Internet has always been a space for free communication, and bloggers have been the mouthpieces of this freedom – freedom of speech, thought, opinion. Yes, they are not white and fluffy, and it is not uncommon for bloggers to violate laws and moral norms ... there are many such “yes”, but instead of looking for ways to regulate, they went down the path of prohibition.

In February, the Prosecutor General’s Office was given the opportunity to block websites without a court order, and in May bloggers were given a collar and a leash.

The final version of the “bloggers law” shocked me first (because it turned out to be nothing like what many media outlets wrote about), and then stupor (because the vagueness and vagueness of the wording is so great that how to apply this law in practice will be completely unclear).

So, closer to the point. Federal Law of 05.05.2014 No. 97-FZ "On Amendments to the Federal Law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection" and certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation on the issues of streamlining the exchange of information using information and telecommunication networks".

1. When the discussion of the bill took place, there were quite a few headlines and arguments in the media and on the Internet under the general meaning of “Bloggers are equated with the media”. And even after the president signed the law, most headlined their news in that spirit. No shit. There is nothing like that in FZ No. 97. Nothing like the media. No changes have been made to the media law.

I would like to ask, everyone who wrote about “equalization” did you ever read the bill? I am sure not, otherwise you would see that in No. 97-FZ there is not a word about the rights that the media have.

Article 47 of the Media Law gives journalists the right to:
(1) to seek, request, receive and disseminate information;
2) visit state bodies and organizations, enterprises and institutions, bodies of public associations or their press services;
(3) be received by officials in connection with a request for information;
4) to obtain access to documents and materials, with the exception of their fragments containing information constituting state, commercial or other secrets specially protected by law;
5) copy, publish, announce or otherwise reproduce documents and materials, subject to the requirements of Section 42, Paragraph one of this Law;
6) make recordings, including with the use of audio and video equipment, film and photography, except in cases provided by law;
(7) to visit specially protected places of natural disasters, accidents and disasters, mass riots and mass gatherings of citizens, as well as areas in which a state of emergency has been declared; to attend rallies and demonstrations;
8) verify the accuracy of the information communicated to it;
9) to express his personal judgments and assessments in communications and materials intended for distribution under his signature;
(10) refuse to prepare under his signature a message or material contrary to his convictions;
(11) to withdraw his signature on the communication or material, the content of which, in his opinion, was distorted in the course of editorial preparation, or to prohibit or otherwise specify the conditions and nature of the use of the communication or material in accordance with the first paragraph of article 42 of this Law;
(12) distribute his communications and materials under his signature, pseudonym or without signature.

In addition, they have the right to keep a hidden record, have the right to distribute personal data and information about the private life of citizens, if this is necessary in the public interest.

The editorial board has the right to request information on the activities of state bodies, local self-government bodies, organizations, public associations, their officials. Request for information is possible both verbally and in writing. The requested information must be provided by the heads of these bodies, organizations and associations, their deputies, press service employees or other authorized persons within their competence. And all the above authorities are obliged to respond to the request within 7 days.

Also, a lot of media preferences are given in the field of use of copyright objects.

The blogger has the right to:

(1) to seek freely, receive, transmit and disseminate information in any way in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation;
2) to state on their website or website page on the Internet their personal judgments and assessments, indicating their name or pseudonym;
3 place or allow the placement on their website or website page on the Internet of texts and (or) other materials of other Internet users, if the placement of such texts and (or) other materials does not contradict the legislation of the Russian Federation;
4) distribute advertising on a reimbursable basis in accordance with civil legislation, Federal Law No. 38-FZ of 13 March 2006 "On Advertising" on its website or website page on the Internet.

That's it! It's called, feel the difference. She's colossal. In fact, bloggers have no media rights. They were not given the protection that the media has.

To be honest, I thought equating bloggers with the media that our lawmakers have been shouting about for two months would be a boon.

Since Article 57 of the Law on Mass Media provides journalists with a fairly good armor and releases from liability for the dissemination of information that is not true and discredits the honor and dignity of citizens and organizations, or infringes on the rights and legitimate interests of citizens, or harms the health and (or) development of children, or constitutes an abuse of freedom of mass information and (or) the rights of a journalist:

(1) if this information is present in mandatory communications;
(2) if they are received from news agencies;
3) if they are contained in the response to a request for information or in the materials of the press services of state bodies, organizations, institutions, enterprises, bodies of public associations;
4) if they are verbatim reproduction of fragments of speeches of people's deputies at congresses and sessions of the Councils of People's Deputies, delegates to congresses, conferences, plenums of public associations, as well as official speeches of officials of state bodies, organizations and public associations;
5) if they are contained in author's works broadcast without prior recording or in texts not subject to editing in accordance with this Law;
6) if they are verbatim reproduction of messages and materials or their fragments distributed by another mass media (except for the cases of dissemination of information specified in part six of article 4 of this law), which can be established and prosecuted for this violation of the legislation of the Russian Federation on mass media.

But nothing like that happened. There's no equivalence. Let me tell you the difference between a blogger and the media. A deputy Pupkin spoke and from the podium said that his parliamentary colleague was a thief and child molester. The media wrote about it, bloggers wrote about it. Pupkin is being sued. Media correspondents and bloggers. Media under item 4. 57 are exempt from liability, there is no blogger.

Another example. One media outlet (No. 1) published the material, another media outlet (No. 2) reprinted it, the blogger posted it on his page (site). A person who believes that the article spreads defamatory and unreliable information about him, appeals to the court to the media No. 2 and the blogger. Media No. 2 comes to court and refers to the reprint with media No. 1, and is released from liability under paragraph 6 of Article 57, the blogger is responsible on a par with media No. 1.

2. Article 10.2 of the Law “On Information, Information Technologies and Protection of Information” not only gives an idea of what a blogger is (about this illusion below), but also establishes in paragraphs 1 and 2 a whole list of bloggers’ responsibilities: to check the accuracy of the information reported, not to spread extremism, not to slander, not to insult, not to write about privacy, to distribute pornography, not to swear, etc.

Citizens, dear ones, I may surprise someone very much ... so it was impossible for bloggers and all other Internet users to do this before. This is prohibited by other regulations, and the law did not make a distinction between bloggers and non-bloggers, just why it was such a common misconception that a blogger cannot be (difficult) prosecuted. And the requirements of the law “On advertising” also apply to bloggers now. Any lawyer who has knowledge of defamation, defamation, insult, extremism, personal data will tell you how you can find and punish a writer through the court of the Internet. The latest example of Navalny is proof of that. There is no anonymity online (almost not). But to exclude this “almost” apparently, the “law on bloggers” was adopted.

3. Gradually, we are getting closer to the most “delicious” article 10.2 “On information, information technologies and information protection” now gives the concept of what a blogger is, from the point of view of the law. The owner of the site and (or) pages of the site on the Internet, on which public information is posted and access to which during the day is more than three thousand users of the Internet (hereinafter - the blogger).

Do you understand? I don't. And I think so to many. And the most discussed question - and the three-thousanders, who is it? How to determine a three-thousandth blogger or not, if today it is read by 100 people, and tomorrow by 5000 people? I will immediately say that we will know the answer to this question when Roskomnadzor develops and approves a “method for determining the number of users of a website or a website page on the Internet per day.” There's no such technique yet. I can assume that they will count not only by visits, but also by subscribers, friends, etc.

However, here I can hardly imagine how our Roskomnadzor will be able to force, for example, foreign Twitter and Facebook to put counters, to provide data to Roskomnadzor about users. Although, in fact, they will have no choice, because if they refuse to do so, their activities in Russia will be suspended. Article 10.1 obliges them to provide information upon request, and Article 15.4 provides for a whole algorithm of actions if such a requirement is not met.

What it will look like in practice. Roskomnadzor sends a request to Twitter, Livejournal, Facebook and demands to provide information about such and such a user (nickname), since they have reason to believe that the user (nickname) will fall under the law on bloggers during monitoring. Not getting an answer. This is followed by the punishment under Art. 19.7.10. The administrative code of the Russian Federation “Failure to submit information or knowingly false information to the body performing functions of control and supervision in the field of communications, information technologies and mass communications”, and then suspending activities in the territory of the Russian Federation, blocking through a URL or (most likely) through an IP address.

When I told this scheme to bloggers I knew, they retorted that, like, Yandex removed the rating of bloggers and everyone else would not be difficult to hide their ratings, subscribers and attendance. Ah, naive as children. In this case, Art. 10.1 was introduced, which introduces a new subject of legal relations – “Organizer of information dissemination on the Internet”. This person carries out activities to ensure the functioning of information systems and (or) programs for electronic computers that are intended and (or) used for receiving, transmitting, delivering and (or) processing electronic messages of Internet users. And then he gave them no weak responsibilities. They are not simply obliged to store information about the facts (read statistics) of the reception, transmission, delivery and (or) processing of voice information, written text, images, sounds or other electronic messages of Internet users. But they are also obliged to do this within six months, to provide this information to authorized state bodies carrying out operational-search activities or ensuring the security of the Russian Federation, in cases established by federal laws. And most importantly, they are obliged to store this information on the territory of the Russian Federation. I hope I can explain what that means. No foreign servers, and if you want there, duplicate here.

Another thing that bothers me personally is the person who has a page, a site that is “access to during the day.” Okay. Stop. What does "access" mean? Access to any page, site on the Internet, has any user. That is, a priori any page that is not closed with privacy tinctures, the site is already a blog, and the one who runs it is a blogger? This is crazy. However, further according to the text of the law, Roskomnadzor is already obliged to “approve the methodology for determining the number of users of a website or a website page on the Internet per day.” But you can not throw out words from the song, a blogger is determined not by the number of users, but by the number of possible access to the site.

4. And then again, briefly, how it all works.

You have your own website, no matter what page. This can be a business card site, a channel on youtube.com, a Vkontakte account, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, in general any site. Hour X is coming - 01.08.2014. What do you do? Nothing. Even de facto you have more than 3,000 visitors, de jure you will receive blogging status only after Roskomnadzor enters you into the register of bloggers and sends you a notice that you are included in the register and therefore must publish “your surname and initials, email address for sending him legally significant messages.” ?

There must be some conclusion, the result of all the above. He's gone. Make your own conclusions. I have outlined my opinion and vision of the “law on bloggers”, I need to “digest” it all, and may later edit and write it.

Take care.

Source: habrahabr.ru/post/222587/