“They made life very difficult”: political scientist Bashirov commented on the law banning advertising from foreign agents

The expert admitted that the most famous bloggers will be able to save the bulk of their income by changing sources of funding

The State Duma adopted in the third reading a law prohibiting citizens and businesses from placing advertisements on information platforms of foreign agents. It has not yet entered into force and is awaiting the approval of the Federation Council and the signature of the President, but it has already caused a major reorganization of the advertising market. Russian political scientist Marat Bashirov shared with MK his opinion on the consequences of innovations.

“We must understand that placing advertisements on the resources of foreign agents is, first of all, a way of “exiting funds” from Russia. At the same time, I note that the audience of the most famous “undesirable” bloggers, journalists, and media managers may not decrease, but change: foreign companies will become sources of financing, however, they will not accrue money directly, but indirectly – through the creation of so-called “autonomous non-profit organizations “- said Bashirov.

The expert also added that the main purpose of sponsoring foreign agents is to provoke instability within the country in the form of rallies and other protest events with the participation of vulnerable groups of the population, in particular, young people – schoolchildren and students.

“Foreign companies pay our foreign agents so that, after reading the latter’s channels, the “hooligans” of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod run through the streets and “muddy the waters.” However, the bill adopted by the State Duma will greatly complicate the lives of such “ventriloquists”, since it will force them to look for roundabout ways of making money for their mass provocations,” the political scientist emphasized.

Against this background, journalist Katerina Gordeeva (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation) suspended her project “Tell Gordeeva.”

“Due to the adoption of the law banning advertising from foreign agents, we will no longer be able to work as before,” she wrote on her personal Telegram account.

It is assumed that the “vDud” resource will lose 70% of its income. As the Telegram channel Shot wrote, blogger Yuri Dud (recognized as a foreign media agent in the Russian Federation) will lose up to 70% of all his advertising income, that is, about 100 million rubles.

It is not yet clear what decision will be made by the most famous company that the blogger advertised – one of the ticket search services. Its parent company is registered in Hong Kong, but there are also legal entities in Russia and the company operates primarily for a Russian-speaking audience.

Apparently, another foreign agent, media manager Alexey Pivovarov, did not expect the introduction of such a bill. Addressing his audience, he asked subscribers to wait for his response – the journalist said that he needed to assess the situation.