Out of jurisdiction likes – Newspaper Kommersant No. 43 (7488) of 03/15/2023

Deputies of the New People faction sent a bill to the government for conclusion, which proposes to prohibit bringing citizens to administrative responsibility for likes on social networks under posts that discredit the army or incite hatred. True, likes are not punished even now – with rare exceptions, when such a reaction is technically combined with a repost – therefore, amendments, even if adopted, will have a minimal effect, the expert says. On the other hand, this initiative will allow the “New People” “to rebuild from the prohibitive agenda,” the political scientist explains.

Anton Tkachev, a member of the New People faction, spoke about the new bill at a plenary session of the State Duma on March 14. As the deputy recalled, at a meeting with the president, party leader Alexei Nechaev said that more conditions should be created in the country so that those who left would envy those who remained. The New People believe that such conditions need to be created right now, so they have prepared a bill in which they propose to ban fines and open administrative cases for expressing emotions on social networks. “We propose to supplement the articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses on inciting hatred and discrediting, so that this does not apply to marks for publications,” Mr. Tkachev explained. Not punishing for likes is the minimum program, he added: you need to “basically remove the pressure in all directions.”

As follows from the text of the bill, which Kommersant has read, the deputies propose to supplement articles of the Code of Administrative Offenses 20.3.1 (inciting hatred or enmity) and 20.3.3 (discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation) with a note that the actions provided for by the relevant articles cannot to recognize the expression of emotions in the form of marks for publications in social networks. Both administrative compositions provide for the initiation of a criminal case in the event of a repetition of such an offense more than twice during the year.

The explanatory note to the project cites as an example the decision of the Leninsky District Court of Barnaul, which in July 2022 fined the teacher Alexei Argunov precisely for “likes”, believing that he “publicly expressed emotions in the form of putting a mark on publications” on the social network. Meanwhile, bringing to justice only for the expression of emotions, according to the authors of the amendments, contradicts the position of the Supreme Court, which back in 2018, in a ruling on cases of extremism, ordered the courts to establish the presence of intent to incite hatred in each specific case.

Colleagues in the Duma reacted ambiguously to the proposal of the New People. “This initiative has yet to be analyzed,” Yevgeny Revenko, deputy head of the United Russia faction, told Kommersant. According to him, United Russia is now focused on solving other issues and tasks “that really concern our voters,” such as support for fighters in the NVO zone and anti-crisis measures.

The deputy head of the LDPR faction, Yaroslav Nilov, told Kommersant that his party had repeatedly opposed ideological evaluation articles in the Code of Administrative Offenses and the Criminal Code. “For example, we were against the criminalization of the article on libel, an administrative punishment was enough,” recalled the deputy. “We proposed removing Art. 282 on inciting hatred, because it is used too widely and can attract almost anyone for any criticism. We have repeatedly opposed responsibility for likes and reposts in social networks. This is an internal tool of the platform, and a citizen is not always able to legally evaluate this or that record.”

Deputy Nikolai Novichkov (“A Just Russia – For Truth”), on the contrary, believes that the punishment should be strengthened. “I advocate tougher liability for public actions online. This applies not only to likes, but also to statements, and messages, and pictures. With all due respect to our colleagues, we will not support this initiative, moreover, we will ensure that the same censorship on the network finally begins to operate, ”he told Kommersant.

The New People initiative will have a very limited scope, since people are not held accountable for likes, says Alexander Verkhovsky, director of the SOVA center (included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents). The only exception is the “class” mark in Odnoklassniki, because in this social network a like automatically leads to a repost on your wall (it was for likes in Odnoklassniki that a resident of Barnaul was punished). At the same time, the repost already qualifies as a publication with all the ensuing legal consequences, the expert adds.

Political scientist Mikhail Vinogradov assesses the proposed amendments as an attempt by New People to “carefully move away from the prohibition agenda”: ​​“People don’t know exactly what responsibility is for, but technically, likes lead to the replication of a post in other people’s feeds. Therefore, as an application for distancing from repressive laws in general, the project may sound and turn out to be resonant,” the expert suggests.

Anastasia Kornya, Ksenia Veretennikova