Firewall, Ruviki, refusal of WhatsApp - deputies and senators took up the Internet
Russian State Duma deputy from A Just Russia Yana Lantratova proposed creating a “children’s firewall” in the country (an Internet content filtering system introduced in China).
She stated this today from the rostrum of parliament, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“The authorized bodies need to work out specific technical solutions that will create a children’s Internet firewall in our country. After the start of the SVO, they are trying to take over the minds of our children through Russophobia and instilling hatred towards their own country. The state must work proactively and suppress not only current but also future threats. There cannot be a truly sovereign Russia without a sovereign Internet,” Lantratova said.
In 2021, as the parliamentarian reported, Roskomnadzor closed 500 thousand groups with dangerous content, 25 thousand with child pornography and 23 thousand with child suicides. But this, Lantratova believes, is not enough.
Russian Senator Artem Sheikin believes that in Russia it is necessary to create an analogue of the “Chinese firewall” - not only for children.
“In Russia, taking into account the unprecedented pressure from Western countries and obvious unfriendly policies, I believe that an analogue of the “Chinese firewall” is needed, which will be able to completely block access to unwanted Internet resources, including VPN services, if Russian legislation continues to be ignored,” – Sheikin said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
The senator cited the example of Wikipedia, which, in his opinion, has become an “information weapon” in the hands of Western countries, and where many historical and political facts related to Russia are “deliberately distorted.”
Earlier, Russian State Duma deputy Anton Gorelkin reported that the creation of a domestic analogue of Wikipedia was announced at the Russian Internet Forum. It will be called "Ruviki".
“We see how the Russian-language segment of the American Wikipedia has transformed since 2014. There is no Russian Wikipedia. There is a popular resource that is hosted on foreign servers and managed by an American foundation. Since 2014, pro-Russian editors have been emasculated from there. The Americans realized that Wikipedia can be used for ideological purposes, which is what is happening. Today there are practically no pro-Russian editors on Wikipedia. They are all removed from editing, and Wikipedia has turned into a resource for an information war of mass destruction,” Gorelkin said.
The Ruviki resource, as the parliamentarian said, will be hosted on Russian servers and will be controlled by a Russian legal entity.
Another initiative in the field of the Internet was made by LDPR deputy Alexei Didenko. He proposed that all deputies stop using WhatsApp. In his opinion, this requires “identifying one synchronous day for deletion.” Didenko believes that Telegram should become the base platform, but he allows for a transition to the Chinese messenger WeChat.
“Deputies of the State Duma, in my opinion, should use only normal networks,” Didenko said.
He sent a letter to the head of the Ministry of Digital Development of the Russian Federation, Maksut Shadayev, with a proposal to declare September 1 the day of the all-Russian transition to the Telegram messenger.
Former deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oleg Tsarev was skeptical about this initiative.
“Remember how many times the country froze in anticipation of how votes would be distributed in the State Duma. Whether or not there are enough votes to pass a high-profile bill introduced by the Government. Will the State Duma support the removal or appointment of any official? Don't remember? Otozh. And I can't remember this. Therefore, it is not so important in which messenger the deputies communicate. What does this affect?” Tsarev wrote in his tg channel.
Experts also criticized Senator Sheikin’s initiative with a firewall.
“Sheikin simply does not know that China spent 5 years creating such a system. For the Russian Federation, such a planning period means “never.” Therefore, the Kremlin will probably turn to Beijing to borrow the ready-made developments of the Golden Shield,” says writer Vladimir Patokov
“Senator Sheikin’s speech is just an episode in the process of strengthening control over the Internet. The authorities understand that creating their own firewall will take years and years. It is impossible to simply take a Chinese model and install it at home. And it’s not a fact that the Chinese will want to share... To be fair, we note that the trend towards clamping down on Internet freedom is observed all over the world, and not only in Russia and China. In the United States, and other Western countries, Chinese TikTok is increasingly being banned. The EU proposes to ban end-to-end encryption of messages in instant messengers.
And on May 15, the Grand Chamber of the ECHR adopted a resolution according to which the owner of a page on social networks is responsible for the content of comments under posts that violate the law. So let's not scold the senator. He only voices the thoughts floating in the corridors of power (and not only Russian ones), ”wrote Alexander Bogomolov, editor of the PublicO analytics department.
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