The State Duma announced the absence of fines for watching interviews with foreign agents.

Amendments on viewing extremist materials and using VPNs in Russia, proposed for adoption by the State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation, will not provide for fines for watching interviews with foreign agents. This was announced on July 16 by the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Sergei Boyarsky.

So, in a video posted on the Telegram channel, he stressed that there are no penalties for watching interviews with foreign agents. He also noted that it is possible to watch such videos, even if the foreign agents in them are talking to each other or with non-Russian agents.

Boyarsky also added that the creation of memes (a meme is a humorous image, video, or text that is rapidly gaining popularity on the Internet) featuring foreign agents or individuals recognized as extremists will not be regarded as the dissemination of extremist materials if the created meme is not included in the list of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation. There are currently 5.5 thousand units of similar content there.

Facebook Instagram and Facebook are also not subject to restrictions for the use of social networks such as Instagram and Facebook (owned by Meta, whose activities are recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation), Boyarsky added.

According to him, the amendments provide for punishment only if the user intentionally searched for and used extremist materials that are included in the list of the Ministry of Justice.

Digital cleansing: Russia plans to impose fines for searching for extremist materials and VPN advertising

The new law will strengthen control over access to prohibited content on the Internet

On July 16, the State Duma Committee on State Construction approved amendments to the draft law on liability in the form of a fine of up to 5,000 rubles for searching the Internet for extremist materials and gaining access to them. At the same time, it is noted that only deliberate search and visiting pages with deliberately extremist content will be punishable. Access to other types of restricted, blocked, or labeled information is not an administrative offense.

So, the presence of intent may be indicated, for example, by repeatedly entering the name of prohibited extremist material in the search bar, using a VPN service to bypass the established locks, and so on. The registration of offenses, in turn, will be carried out on general grounds, there are no innovations in this matter.