I think it'd be an interesting insight for you, folks. The article as presented in russian news media Kommersant via automatic translation:
The State Duma has proposed to impose fines for searching for illegal content
On July 17, the State Duma plans to consider in the second reading amendments establishing criminal and administrative liability for a number of violations in the field of communications and information - from the organization of uncontrolled VPN networks to the transfer of SIM cards to third parties. The most resonant in them was the novelty on fines for citizens for the deliberate search for extremist materials, including using means to bypass blocking. Proving the fact of such a search may be problematic, experts say.
Initially, the bills tightening regulation of the Russian segment of the Internet concerned other issues - the activities of forwarders and foreign officials, but by the second reading, amendments were proposed to establish a number of new provisions of the Administrative and Criminal Codes of the Russian Federation. In particular, this concerns the criminalization of the transfer of Internet resource accounts and the provision of VPN access not controlled by Roskomnadzor, the recognition of the use of means to bypass blocking as an aggravating circumstance in the commission of crimes, the prosecution of companies and individuals for participating in the exchange of SIM cards and providing them to third parties, etc.
The most resonant amendment was the one on administrative liability for “searching for obviously extremist materials and gaining access to them,” including using VPN services (Article 13.53 of the Code of Administrative Offenses).
If the bill is adopted, citizens will face a fine of 3,000 to 5,000 rubles. In the document, extremist materials are those included in the relevant list of the Ministry of Justice, as well as those that meet this definition in accordance with federal law. In addition, if the amendments are adopted, advertising of “software and hardware for access to information resources with restricted access,” that is, VPN services, will be prohibited (Part 18 of Article 14.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation). Citizens will face a fine of 50,000 to 80,000 rubles, officials - from 80,000 to 150,000 rubles, and legal entities - from 200,000 to 500,000 rubles.
A high-ranking source familiar with the development of the project explained to Kommersant that the amendments establish liability only for the deliberate search for and actual access to obviously extremist materials, “that is, to such materials that are clearly included by a corresponding court decision in the list of extremist materials published by the Russian Ministry of Justice, which he cannot help but know about.” “Visiting the personal pages of citizens, including those with a ‘dubious reputation’, is not regulated or limited by these amendments in any way,” the source assured Kommersant.
However, the initiative has already raised questions from the head of the "Safe Internet League" Ekaterina Mizulina, who came to the conclusion that she will no longer be able to pass on data on extremist communities to the police, since to do so she needs to "purposefully monitor such content." "And the activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs employees on monitoring may also be recognized as illegal," Ms. Mizulina was indignant. She recalled that the list of extremist materials contains 5.5 thousand items - from "violent content with videos of migrant murders" to memes and tracks of foreign agents, and wondered whether every citizen should familiarize themselves with it: "How will they establish intent in searching for such materials?" The activist was answered in absentia by the deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Oleg Matveychev, who allowed that an exception could be made for security forces who are looking for illegal content.
Ekaterina Mizulina’s concerns are shared by experts.
“It’s not very clear what kind of behavior the legislator expects from the user,” says Comply partner Maxim Ali. “It’s hard to imagine that an elderly citizen knows about the Ministry of Justice registry, will find it, and will check the material they are looking for in it before each search query.”
According to him, it is also not entirely clear how access to prohibited content will be proven: "I clicked on a prohibited link, but it is blocked. The moment of the request will be recorded, but if the page does not load, this should not be a violation."
Based on the design of the new administrative composition, it will be necessary to prove that a specific user, firstly, carried out a search, secondly, that the information sought is prohibited, thirdly, that he knew about it, says lawyer Andrei Grivtsov: "It is only possible to know in advance if there is evidence that you are familiar with the list of extremist materials." However, practice is moving towards a consistent reduction in the standards of proof, the lawyer notes. "It can be assumed that in practice they will hold people accountable if they simply find a search query on a phone regarding something extremist or a tab with open material," says Mr. Grivtsov.
Yuri Mirzoev, CEO of the law firm Mitra, does not rule out that complaints, user behavior analysis, monitoring of their requests through providers, as well as data from IT companies, may be used to detect the fact of searching for extremist content. According to Vasily Stepanenko, CEO of the cloud provider Nubes, the amendments are intended to make the user understand that their search queries may be revealed by both the prohibited resource itself and the VPN service they used to bypass blocking: “And thus reduce the desire to use them.”
\1. Legal liability for sharing sim cards (and internet accounts) with third parties. In the system they built, where those are usually directly linked to internal passport, they became used as one of the major way to ID you and to log into any service, including government ones. Therefore they kinda locked themselves in the thinking framework where phone number IS identity, like SSN, in spite of them being sold like candies just 10 years before. And although they would have a hard time controlling it now, they roll out ways to punish at least those, sim-farms they'd find while following other crimes.
\2. VPN ads are everywhere, and although they are for now in the gray, you'd be surprised how deep the untold divide lays: a lot of people either do have a free VPN or\and a subscription or feel proud they don't need it because local content is all they need. Suuuure. As proposed there, using them WHILE doing something questionable may factor into deciding ypur actions were intentional.
\3. Searching for the extremist content. This one is not well formulated, and that's the goal. While we have a list of extremist materials that is rather strict and sober, includes stuff like white pride, isis, other propaganda, we also have laws that promotes LGBTQ+ media as extremism, there are previously popular artists that are called extremists for their lack of enthusiasm in our war efforts. There's no solid explanation what of these are counted as extremism and how this would be decided if there was your intent to look for them - not even access, copy or distribute - but just search it. Yet, I see the monopoly of Yandex, our Google, being very handy at persecuting thought crimes against the Motherland.
P.S.: The notion I'd put there - Russia is a good, useful example of how privacy and the rule of the law (and logic) can be eradicated, the one europeans should be aware of when their own lawmakers try to pass e2ee ban or something similar.
