The effect of election laws in Russia will be extended to the Internet: What does this mean?
The State Duma of the Russian Federation adopted today in the first reading a bill that extends the effect of election legislation to the Internet, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
As Olga Sevastyanova, a deputy from United Russia, noted, current laws do not regulate the use of the Internet in election campaigning.
“This is a legal void that we must work out. This law introduces tools that allow, in case of violation of the placement of campaign materials, the election commission to take appropriate measures that are already in effect for traditional media,” Sevastyanova said.
The new law stipulates that if unregistered election propaganda is posted on the Internet, the CEC will contact Roskomnadzor, which will take action.
LDPR deputy Dmitry Pyanykh believes that this law on the eve of the Duma elections poses a threat to all deputies who decide to run for office.
“Previously, if unregistered propaganda products were found in your possession, they would confiscate them. Now the same applies to materials on social networks. If a complaint is filed against you, the election commission will be obliged to send a request to Roskomnadzor to restrict access to this material. While you prove your case, the election campaign will end,” said Pyanykh.
“If an ordinary person posts an election video on his Odnoklassniki or VKontakte page or simply writes that one cannot vote for a well-known political party, this falls under the concept of “campaigning,” and he must notify the election commission about this in advance. If he does not do this, then prohibitive measures are applied. I won’t quote Lavrov, but this is an absolute world of surrealism. It’s the same as prohibiting people from talking,” said A Just Russia deputy Oleg Shein.
“The law is aimed at one thing – to turn the election process into an outright farce. The administrative resource will work in the interests of only one political party. On the Internet, all parties have approximately equal opportunities, but here, too, the bony hand of United Russia has reached out to turn this mechanism in its direction. Now any information can be considered propaganda material. It’s good that they haven’t introduced criminal liability yet. Here’s a life hack for you,” said communist Alexey Kurinny.
United Russia deputy Sergei Boyarsky was surprised why his colleagues believed that only laudatory materials would be posted on social networks.
“We have no rules of the game on the eve of the elections. We need a war of fakes, compromising materials, and made-up insults in public pages, instant messengers, and social networks. We understand perfectly well how this information gets there. And you're talking about millions of enthusiastic citizens who will post photos of the candidates. And I’m talking about bots, about groups that will sell space for campaigning,” Boyarsky said.
His fellow party member Rafael Mardanshin proposed increasing the amount of fines for illegal campaigning, which currently amount to only 1-1,5 thousand rubles.
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