Bloggers with a daily audience of more than 1,000 people may be required to transfer data about themselves to Roskomnadzor

Bloggers and influencers with an audience of more than 1,000 people per day may be required to transfer data about themselves to Roskomnadzor, TASS reports, citing the agency.

As noted by RKN, information that is distributed without the help of the media must include reliable information about its owner or distributor so that he can be identified. But these requirements are not currently being met.

To make it easier to identify the distributor of information, this requirement may now be made more specific: not everyone will be forced to do this, but only those whose audience exceeds 1,000 people per day. Such bloggers will have to disclose their full names and contact information so that there is somewhere to "send important legal information." The department emphasized that this is not registration, but a notification to Roskomnadzor that the account owner is distributing information.

This also means that Russian companies will be prohibited from advertising on those sites that have not complied with RKN's requirements. In addition, they want to do this in order to "prevent the spread of fakes and information that calls for violence and involves children in committing illegal acts, and other prohibited information."

It is reported that since the beginning of this year alone, Roskomnadzor has blocked or deleted 13.5 thousand materials with child pornography, 5.8 thousand materials with suicidal content, and 5.7 thousand materials with drug propaganda in various Russian social networks (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, MoiMir, RuTube).

"Today, online platforms often act as mass media for Russians. The anonymity of content distributors is dangerous: messages with extremist content can have the effect of a bomb exploding. Unreliable information can damage not only an individual, but also the security of an entire state. It is important that information about the user distributing information on a social network or messenger is known. This person must understand their responsibility for the content. Only in this case can a safe information environment be ensured for Russian Internet users," Roskomnadzor noted.