The neural network searches for LGBT topics in the library of the publishing house Ridero

Internet publisher Ridero launched a neural network check of its library to identify books with LGBT themes and subsequently withdraw these publications from sale. Maria Ryavina, director of production at the Riderо publishing service, told Kommersant about this.

“How many books will eventually cease to be sold, it will be possible to say later. Verification with the help of the neural network ends, after its completion, the books will be removed, – said Maria Ryavina. – There are currently about a thousand authors who themselves asked us to remove the books after mailing. Some authors, who knew about the forthcoming adoption of the law, came to us to remove books even before this mailing.

The email newsletter referred to by a Ridero spokesperson was launched “to alert writers to emerging risks.” “In general, all the current authors of Riderо received letters, and as a result, there were no withdrawals,” Ms. Ryavina assures: “In fact, we are starting to remove books only now and only those books that were separately marked by moderators.”

It should be noted that Kommersant sent a request to the Ridero company due to the publication of the literary editor and journalist Lena Klimova. Today, December 5, she posted on social media a screenshot of a page on the Ridero website where one of her books was for sale. It shows an error message: “404, book not found”. “OK it’s all over Now. Removed all my books, except for one,” wrote Mrs. Klimova. She said that the paper books of her authorship “are no longer available.”

“At the current stage, we are removing from sale those books that our moderators have identified as containing LGBT themes,” Ms. Ryavina explained. “At the same time, all texts of books are processed by a neural network that tries to highlight books with LGBT themes. Of course, we understand that the outcome of her work will also affect those books in which the topic is raised in passing: it is very difficult to say simply by textual analysis whether there is propaganda in the book or not, not to mention the fact that the very concept of propaganda is not defined by law. However, after many tests, we have reduced false positives to a minimum.”

If such “operations” do occur, Ridero will “manually review the authors’ appeals and decide whether to return the book to sale,” the company representative emphasized.

“We have more than 100,000 titles in the catalog, and until recently we have never marked our books for whether they contain a description of LGBT relations or not,” Maria Ryavina added. “For us, all topics are equal, each book has the right to see the light. For us, what can and cannot be published is determined by legislation, not by our internal decisions. At the same time, violation of the law, which will come into force at the time of signing, threatens with huge fines, which we cannot afford, as well as the vast majority of our authors. The blurring of the wording in the law adds to the problems, for what they will really be punished, no one knows. Therefore, we may be playing it safe, but we do not want to expose ourselves and our authors.

Recall that on November 24, the State Duma adopted laws banning “LGBT propaganda”. They provide for a ban on “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations and preferences”, propaganda of pedophilia, as well as on the dissemination of information “demonstrating non-traditional sexual relations and (or) preferences or capable of causing minors to desire to change their sex.” For legal entities, fines of up to 5 million rubles are provided. or stop activities for up to 90 days. Today, December 5, President Vladimir Putin signed this law, which from that moment is considered to have entered into force.

Earlier, on November 25, the Labyrinth online bookstore announced a temporary suspension of the sale of a number of goods, including the collection and sale of some pre-orders. A message on the store’s website indicated that Labyrinth was analyzing the contents of the books “for the presence of prohibited information in them.”

Maria Starikova