Forbidden entry: how the search for extremist materials on the Web will be detected
Russian citizens may soon be fined for purposefully searching for extremist materials included in the relevant list of the Ministry of Justice, for visiting pages with such texts, as well as for VPN advertising. At the same time, there will be no mass monitoring of search queries, the State Duma and the Federation Council assured Izvestia. The facts of violations will be revealed during inspections due to appeals from citizens or media materials. The novelties appeared in the draft law on forwarding activities introduced to the State Duma in the fall of 2024. It was approved in the first reading in January of this year. But by the second reading, large-scale amendments appeared, and in a number of points the document began to apply to all citizens of the Russian Federation. The law sets a precedent for responsibility for content consumption, not just its distribution, experts say.
Fines for searching for extremist materials: what is known
Russians may be fined for searching the Internet for extremist materials, including using VPN services. However, we are not talking about the introduction of mass, automatic monitoring of search queries — administrative cases will be initiated only if citizens apply, based on media materials or as part of verification measures "by the relevant authorities." Artem Sheikin, first deputy chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Construction, told Izvestia about this.
— Violations are recorded within the framework of departmental procedures. The law does not provide for automatic mass monitoring of all Internet requests," the parliamentarian assured, pointing out that the amendments are aimed at protecting citizens from telephone and Internet fraud and the illegal distribution of prohibited content.
According to the senator, the law will cover the deliberate search for materials that are included in the relevant list approved by the Ministry of Justice.
The Ministry of Justice forms a federal list of extremist materials based on court decisions. As of July 16, it consists of 5,473 items.
The list may include books, films, music, slogans, websites, pictures, and even memes. Many works by the leaders of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, as well as some examples of religious literature, are extremist.
— Awareness is proved through, for example, multiple searches for the same material, circumvention of blockages [using VPNs], discussions [of materials recognized by courts as extremist], — said Artem Sheikin. — Random clicks, single clicks, or viewing questionable pages is not a violation. Decisions are made by the court, and erroneous fines can be appealed.
Initially, the bill was submitted to the State Duma in the fall of 2024, but it concerned exclusively forwarding activities. In particular, he proposed an increase in fines for those who work as freight forwarders but are not included in the relevant register. And in this form, in January 2025, the bill was approved in the first reading. But by the second reading, the scope of the document and its focus had expanded dramatically: the State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation approved large-scale amendments to it on July 14, 2025. In particular, the draft law now suggests the appearance of a new article in the Administrative Code — "Searching for knowingly extremist materials and gaining access to them."
For intentionally searching the Internet for information included in the federal list of extremist materials, the fine for citizens will amount to 3-5 thousand rubles. A similar penalty is provided for accessing such information using a VPN.
Separately, it is proposed to introduce fines for advertising such services — for citizens in 50-80 thousand rubles, for officials — up to 150 thousand, for legal entities — up to 500 thousand.
The measures will help strengthen control over digital communication channels and strengthen the digital security of the state, Anatoly Vyborny, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Security, a co-author of the initial draft law, told Izvestia.
"Those who try to circumvent the blocking of prohibited resources immediately leave their digital footprints," he said. — Unknowingly, they find themselves in the sight of recruiters and terrorists, which means they are at risk. They are targeted, manipulated, and crimes are committed with their hands. It is better to prevent such offenses. And the sooner the better.
However, the deputy assured that "no one is going to monitor the search queries of each person."
How the amendments will work
VPN as a technology is not prohibited, but a number of conditions must be met, including filtering blocked sites, Maxim Ali, head of Comply's intellectual property practice, recalled.
"It's not easy for a business, especially for an international one," he said. — VPN solutions, especially global ones, are extremely difficult to meet all the requirements imposed by Roskomnadzor. And if earlier deviations were threatened with blocking, now they are also fined.
Foreign services deliberately do not comply with the requirements of Roskomnadzor, for which they are blocked, added Alexey Lukatsky, a business consultant on information security at Positive Technologies.
"But fines can affect the frequency and likelihood of using VPNs," he says. — People will not want to become violators of the new legislative norms.
According to him, law enforcement agencies can search for people who intentionally view extremist materials in cooperation with Roskomnadzor and search engines by monitoring traffic. But studying the contents of smartphones and laptops of users suspected of intentionally searching for prohibited information is unlikely, the expert believes.
"The current procedural rules do not give law enforcement agencies the right to access users' personal gadgets unless an administrative or criminal case has been initiated against them,— Alexey Lukatsky reminded. — And if ads for circumvention tools are found, a few demonstrative fines will be enough for sites that have placed such ads, and they themselves will begin to control what and who is promoting on their resources.
Managing Partner of the Pen Bar Association & Alexey Dobrynin believes that after the amendments are adopted, recommendations will appear on how to identify such cases.
"It is possible that specialized centers or law enforcement agencies will take over the centralization of information," he believes.
Nevertheless, he expressed confidence that users who accidentally clicked on the "wrong link" would face "literally nothing."
— The bill under discussion involves bringing to administrative responsibility persons who intentionally carry out the search. The burden of proving premeditation lies with law enforcement officers," he said. — And you can request information from the operator or make an extract of the browser history, from which it will be seen that access to extremist materials was of a single, random nature, which does not correspond to the concept of "deliberate search".
But subscribing to a channel included in the federal list of extremist materials is highly likely to be interpreted as gaining access to extremist materials, Alexey Dobrynin believes.
Sudden corrections
The sudden appearance of amendments on extremist materials in the draft law on forwarding activities raises questions, said Yuri Mirzoev, General Director of Mitra National Law Company LLC.
"This approach can be called circumvention of the procedure," he said. — The narrow law includes large-scale initiatives that are not always related to its original theme. This method allows you to limit public discussion and expert analysis. The law progresses faster if the amendments are introduced not as a separate bill, but in an already passed first reading.
In his opinion, when unrelated provisions are added to the bill in the second reading, it violates the principle of legal purity.
— In addition, if the new amendments were not discussed in the first reading, deputies and experts cannot fully evaluate them. This violates the principle of transparency in lawmaking," he added.
The introduction of so many amendments in the second reading is unacceptable, said Yuri Sinelshchikov, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation.
"There has never been a situation where so many rules that do not relate to the initial reading have been introduced at once," he pointed out. — Moreover, they all fell on very serious articles. Changing the concept in the second reading is an unacceptable phenomenon.
Yuri Sinelshchikov stressed that it was necessary to have a broad discussion of the amendments, consultations with experts, and gathering the opinions of the deputy corps.
— Tomorrow (July 17th. — Ed.) the second reading of the bill will take place. We will try to raise the issue of the amendments being discussed through a normal procedure," he said.
How will the changes affect VPNs?
The amendments added to the second reading of the bill also prohibit the advertising of VPN services. At the same time, large international services of this kind are already blocked.
Therefore, the new rules will accelerate their withdrawal from the market, said Igor Bederov, director of the Cyber research department at T.Hunter.
—And the remaining authorized VPNs connected to the state FGIS system will be more expensive due to the cost of filtering traffic," he said. — For users, this means a 30-50% increase in the cost of subscriptions. This will also increase the proportion of unreliable free VPNs that may sell user data or contain malware.
Users face fines for searching for extremist materials through a VPN, even without saving or distributing content, the expert said.
Alexey Dobrynin explained that advertising may mean mentioning the names of VPN services and providing users with instructions on how to install them in order to gain access to blocked resources.
IT expert Sergey Pomortsev said that it is impossible to determine the content of requests through encrypted VPN traffic without access to the provider's servers, which are often located abroad.
To detect the fact of searching for extremist materials, data collected by providers, telecom operators, as well as search services will be used. The law sets a precedent for responsibility for the consumption of content, not just its distribution, Igor Bederov said.
These initiatives have not been discussed with the telecommunications industry in the Russian Federation, sources among mobile operators said. The MTS press service separately noted that they are now carefully studying all the points of this bill.
The press service of the Ministry of Digital Affairs reported that the amendments will help fight intruders and will not affect bona fide users.
"The amendments also prohibit the search for deliberately extremist materials from the list of the Ministry of Justice. Facebook Instagram* or Facebook* (owned by Meta, a company recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation) is out of the question," the ministry said.
Izvestia also sent a request to Roskomnadzor with a request to clarify how violations will be detected.
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