Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Davankov proposed not to punish old posts on social networks

State Duma Vice Speaker Vyacheslav Davankov (New People) sent a bill to the government for conclusion, which proposes not to hold citizens administratively liable for disseminating information on the Internet if the statute of limitations for the article has expired.

“Internet activity has long been a tool of pressure and settling personal scores. Now even a comment from two years ago can be considered a “continuing violation”. Although a person has long forgotten about him, and could well change his position on this matter. Our bill will protect people from liability for old posts in social networks. The statute of limitations for administrative articles should be the same as offline: two to three months,” Mr. Davankov commented on the initiative.

The bill (Kommersant has it) amends Article 4.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation on the limitation period for bringing to administrative responsibility. The document proposes to calculate the statute of limitations for administrative offenses expressed in the dissemination of information on the Internet, from the day the offense was committed.

According to the current legislation, most administrative articles for the dissemination of information on the Internet fall into the category of “continuing offences”, the limitation period of which is calculated from the moment the publication is discovered by law enforcement agencies.

Erdni Kagaltynov