The CEC will control bloggers

The Central Election Commission has developed consolidated methodological recommendations for monitoring compliance with the rules of information support for elections on the Internet, Kommersant reports . For sites and popular bloggers, the same restrictions will be established as for traditional media.

The issue of informing and agitation on the Internet was not settled by the CEC document, Maya Grishinak, who oversees the publication in the department, told the publication. In addition, in recent years, thanks to changes in the legislation on information "a certain legal framework has formed."

The CEC resolution will prescribe a procedure for checking sites that are not registered as the media, as well as bloggers. Publications containing both calls to vote in a certain way and "the author’s opinion about a particular candidate, an election association." By analogy with the media, it was decided to “qualify these actions as campaigning only if the spread of a negative or positive opinion is systematic or purposeful.”

The rules for election campaigning apply to registered Internet media and popular resources included in the corresponding register of Roskomnadzor. It falls into it sites or pages in social networks with a vision of more than three thousand people a day.

These resources must observe the timing of agitation, which begins in 28 days and stops a day before the day of voting. In addition, election campaigning can be placed if information about readiness to present this service and its value is published no later than 30 days before the announcement of the elections.

The election of the laws on the network should monitor compliance with the legislation on the network, the document says. It is recommended that commissions go to court to block sites with any illegal information about elections.

The new version of the Law "On Information, Information Technologies and Information Protection" entered into force on August 1, 2014 imposes on sites and accounts in social networks with a traffic of 3 thousand users per day of restrictions installed for the media. The owners of such online pages are required to register them in Roskomnadzor.

In May, the press secretary of Roskomnadzor Vadim Ampelonsky said that 10 months after the entry into force of the "Law on Bloggers" only a little over 500 Russians registered their pages in social networks as the media. According to him, the new status for their pages turned mainly by pro -government politicians. They make up about half of all registered bloggers.