Speech by a representative of the SOVA Center at the OSCE Dublin Conference on Internet Freedom

June 18-19, 2012 in Dublin (Ireland) hosted an OSCE conference "Freedom on the Internet" . We publish the speech of the representative of the center "Sova" Natalia Yudina.

Dear participants of the conference.

I work for a Russian NGO - Information and analytical center "Owl". The area of interest of our center - problems of nationalism and racism, the relationship between religion and society, abuse of anti-extremist legislation. All these areas Naturally connected to the Internet.

Our Center proceeds in its activities from two provisions.

First, freedom of expression can and should be limited. for reasons of public safety, but only to the extent that established by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Second, freedom of expression on the Internet is no different from freedom of expression in any other communication medium. Accordingly, in The Internet should be subject to exactly the same restrictions as outside it.

Hate speech in Russia in general and in Russian segment of the Internet in particular represents a serious problem. Two things must be taken into account here. The first one is sharp reduced in comparison with most European countries the requirements of decency in public speech in regard to ethnic or religious intolerance. The second is the high level of hate crimes, which makes people more attentive apply to relevant propaganda.

I must say that the authorities have long recognized the problem. In 2009-2011 years, for illegal public statements, 70-80 sentences were handed down in year. The intensification of law enforcement should please, but it also inspires fear.

First, there are cases when people are condemned explicitly illegally. And the low quality of anti-extremist legislation to this very helpful. Secondly, even if the statement does contain signs of a crime, it often remains controversial whether these statements are so dangerous, to start a criminal case.

Let's take a closer look at the statistics. In 2011 out of 81 people convicted of racist and other inflammatory propaganda, 50 were sentenced for statements on the Internet, including

on websites - 18;
in social networks and forums - 31;
in the local network (for uploading films) - 2;
distribution of materials by e-mail - 1;

Among these 81 people, we do not know a single one who would sentenced for quite innocent statements, but we know at least one person who whose statements, albeit racist in essence, do not deserve a criminal persecution. Most likely, there are more of them, since the statements themselves do not always known. After all, not all racist chatter on the Internet or elsewhere deserves criminal prosecution.

In addition, very often the degree of public danger of speech, even if it is inflammatory in content. Public danger is largely determined by the size of the audience. Define an audience for speaking on the Internet is not always an easy task. But, As far as we know, very often no one tries to solve this problem.

But if the criterion of public danger seriously taken into account, law enforcement would be better off investigating quite numerous cases of really dangerous inflammatory propaganda when calls for violence are systematically disseminated, including specific recommendations for its use and even sometimes personal data potential victims.

A huge problem is the existing mechanism in Russia judicial prohibition of texts and other materials as extremist. This mechanism seems extremely harmful to freedom of speech and, at the same time, clearly meaningless to stop hate speech, if only for the simple reason that the subject of the ban cannot be unambiguously formulated: for example, in the forbidden text it is enough to change the name or at least a couple of lines - and it will be a different text.

The federal list of extremist materials in 2011 grew from 748 to 1066 items (now there are already 1254 items on the list). At least 109 items added last year are materials from the Internet. Arises the problem is how to ensure the implementation of the ban if the owner of the site or the owner servers, i.e. hosting provider, refuse to remove prohibited material. The solution is in an order to Internet access providers to block access to relevant websites.

Very often, such an order is issued without a trial. Also very often the prosecutor's office issues such instructions, based not on the list materials prohibited by the courts, but on their own ideas that should have been prohibited.

Finally, there are frequent cases when, because of one text, they demand block access to a large site, sometimes with thousands of materials, not having nothing to do with the reason for which the measure was taken.

Most often, if providers refuse to comply with such requirements, they lose the case in court and are forced to block.

The effectiveness of locks decreases as this extension increases. practices: more and more people learn about simple ways to bypass blocking access.

Thus, we believe that special measures taken in relation to hate speech in general and on the Internet in particular, or lead to unreasonable restrictions on civil rights and freedoms, or are simply not effective enough.

Countering hate speech on the Internet should be based on common and reasonably applied prosecution procedures and international cooperation in the field of internet industry.