Bill regulating extremist sites pulled from Parliament

In a bid to get tough on online extremism, lawmakers have submitted a set of amendments that would make it possible to shut down websites with extremist content by court order. The amendments were withdrawn, however, for further examination, which underscores how complex legislation dealing with the Internet can get.
One of the more pointed amendments targets the current law on extremist activity and proposes a new Article 13, which would introduce responsibility for publishing extremist materials over the Internet. The current law does not give any details on the role of the Internet as a mass medium, therefore regulation of extremist content online is not addressed. In the new bill, "in case of repeated posting of extremist material, a court can rule to close access to the [Internet] site on the territory of the Russian Fede­ration." Internet service providers would have to block the site within a month of the court order
The bill would amend three existing laws - On Measures Against Extremist Activity, On Free­dom of Conscience and Religious Be­liefs, and On the Media.
"Prosecutors are struggling like a fish on ice," the Vedomosti business daily quoted one of the authors of the bill, State Duma Deputy Sergei Kap­kov, as saying. "We have met and talked with providers, with the heads of sites like Mail.ru and Livejournal.ru, and experts," says Kapkov, a member of the State Duma Committee on Infor­mation Policy. According to him, the problems in shutting down sites are not technical, but legislative.
Submitted on December 3, the bill was withdrawn the following day for further discussion.
Indeed, experts concede that lack of clearly worded legislation is a two-way problem - difficulty in prosecuting extremism online and making journalists vulnerable to prosecution.
"We have to admit that until we get clear, civilized and maximally detailed amendments to laws that regulate Internet use, we are vulnerable," Natalia Loseva, director of Internet projects at the RIA Novosti news agency told The Moscow News. "In this case, it's the lack of rules that gets in the way of freedom of information."
Loseva admits that her rights as an internet journalist would be limited, but supports legislation that regulates information that is hateful or that incites drug use. In order for those regulations to be clear and effective, however, they have to be created together with the expert community. "There are a lot of nuances involved in information posted over the Internet," she said. "For instance, where does the blog end and the position of the mass media begin? Who exactly is responsible for the text? The person who posted or the website?"
Vedmosti, citing an unnamed sour­ce in the presidential administration, said that chances were slim that the amendments would be passed anytime soon because President Dmitry Med­vedev has pledged a commitment to free speech. "No government officials will be able to hamper discussions in the Internet," the President said in his state-of-the-nation address in No­vember.
The authors of the bill were unavailable for comment this week, but a source in the State Duma confirmed to The Moscow News that the bill had been withdrawn. She could not give any further details on when and if it would be discussed further.
Russia does not boast a large share of Internet users, but their numbers are growing very rapidly, and the rate of growth of the Internet as a medium in Russia is outpacing those of other countries. According to the All Russian Center for Public Opinion Research, 20 percent of Russians (about 28 million) used the Internet as a source of Information in 2008.
According to TNS Gallup, the average monthly auditory of the Yandex search engine is 16.1 million Rus­sians. Nearly 16 million Russians use Mail.ru.