State Duma Committee: Criminal Liability for Likes, Reposts, and Memes Will Remain
The State Duma Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption has issued a negative opinion on a bill that would remove criminal liability for reposts on the internet. Likes and reposts are often prosecuted under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, “Incitement of Hatred or Enmity, as well as Humiliation of Human Dignity,” which carries a penalty of up to 5 years in prison. The administration of VKontakte assists in identifying users even without a formally documented request from law enforcement agencies.
Dozens of social media users have already been convicted under criminal law for likes and reposts. In this context, the idea emerged to remove this area from the scope of the criminal code. The relevant bill was published on the legislative activity support system’s website in June 2018. The State Duma’s Expert Council on the Development of the Information Society under the Youth Parliament also proposed changing the liability for likes and reposts on social networks.
However, neither the bill nor the expert council’s proposals found support among colleagues. State Duma deputy from “United Russia” Sergey Zheleznyak stated that “we cannot condone manipulation and information wars,” and therefore, punishment for reposts should not be softened.
“The idea is legally formulated incorrectly. It needs to be reworded, then we’ll work on it and consult with experts. The project is not supported by anyone,” said committee head Vasily Piskarev. He emphasized that the government of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Court did not support the project to decriminalize likes and reposts on social networks.
How VKontakte Assists Law Enforcement
Criminal cases in Russia are most often initiated for posts on VKontakte. Why? The administration of this Russian service is very cooperative and actively assists law enforcement agencies. Lists of IP addresses and other confidential data are sometimes sent even without an official request—just at the request of a law enforcement officer via email.
The VKontakte administration provides the IP addresses of page visitors and the phone number linked to any user’s page. After that, a request is sent to the telecom operator serving that phone number to find out who accessed the page from that IP at the specified time. The responses to these requests serve as evidence that the page belongs to a specific person.
Once this evidence is collected, a criminal case can be initiated, a search can be conducted at the suspect’s residence, and computer equipment can be seized to look for further evidence.
For example, VKontakte user Maria Motuznaya faced criminal charges for posting memes about religion. She was accused of “humiliating the Negroid race.” The fifth court hearing in Motuznaya’s case is scheduled for September 25.
The problem is that, by law, resources are only required to respond to such requests by court order. However, VKontakte has a special email address where employees of any agency can send scans or even photos of requests, and sometimes just plain text requests from random email addresses. “What should a law-abiding social network do in response to such a request? Ignore it and ask for a court order. But VKontakte is not just law-abiding—it’s very law-abiding and friendly with government agencies. That’s why VKontakte provides information in response to any request. It’s scary to imagine how many fake requests come from amateur investigators. Yes, you understood correctly—VKontakte helps imprison its own users,” write the authors of the “You’ll Go to Jail for a Like” channel. They also published the email address for such requests ([email protected]) and attached a printout of a response from the social network’s administration.
Recently, the administration has started asking law enforcement to at least send requests for confidential data from official email addresses, not from @mail.ru accounts.
Public Opinion
According to the Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), 55% of Russians support the idea of criminal punishment for social media posts and believe that a person should bear the same responsibility for reposts as for their own content. Respondents in the nationwide survey believe that reposts are a source of information dissemination and can destabilize society and thus harm it.
After the negative opinion from the relevant committee, the prospects for passing the bill to decriminalize likes and reposts look doubtful.
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