By the second reading of the bill on tightening the conditions for the sale of SIM cards, an amendment was made to the document obliging bloggers and owners of Telegram channels with at least 10 thousand subscribers to transfer their data to Roskomnadzor. The State Duma Committee on Information Policy recommended that deputies adopt this bill, reports the head of the committee, Alexander Khinshtein.
According to the deputy, many Telegram channels «already surpass traditional media in terms of influence, but their owners bear virtually no responsibility for the information they disseminate, including fakes.» If the bill is adopted, owners will be required to transfer data about themselves to Roskomnadzor and «not to disseminate prohibited information,» Khinshtein writes.
Those who do not provide personal data to Roskomnadzor will not be able to place advertisements in Telegram channels and collect donations. The deputy did not specify how this will be regulated. In addition, other channels will be prohibited from reposting their publications.
An amendment was also made to the bill for the second reading, prohibiting instant messengers from receiving calls and messages from numbers unfamiliar to the user.
The bill was adopted in its first reading in June. Among other things, the document prohibits foreigners from owning more than 10 SIM cards, while the limit for Russians is set at 20. According to Roskomnadzor data from July, cited by Khinshtein, 268 people in Russia own more than one thousand SIM cards each, accounting for a total of 1.1 million mobile numbers.
Interfax wrote on July 19 that deputies want to oblige bloggers with 10 thousand subscribers to report themselves to Roskomnadzor. According to the agency, if they refuse, the authorities will demand that the platforms block their channels and pages. Khinshtein claims that «there is no talk of blocking channels without identification.»
The committee also clarified the wording of the concept of «trash streams», a bill to ban which the State Duma adopted in the first reading in January. «This is information that offends human dignity and public morality, expresses obvious disrespect for society, contains images of actions with signs of illegality, including violence, and is distributed for hooligan, selfish or other base motives,» Khinshtein cited the definition of trash streams. The bill provides for administrative liability for them and fines of up to 700 thousand rubles.