Russia's State Duma agrees to refer to bloggers as mass media.

Russia's State Duma agrees to refer to bloggers as mass media.(RBTH).

The Russian State Duma has approved the amendment to refer to bloggers as mass media while considering in second reading a bill from the "counterterrorism set."

The amendment, drafted by Alexei Mitrofanov of the Just Russia faction, Andrei Lugovoi and Vadim Dengin both of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party, concerns creating a new category of users in the Internet called a blogger - a person, whose personal website or page in social networks has at least 3,000 visits per day, will be included in a certain registry and will be able, in particular, to post advertisements for a fee.

Being listed in the registry will oblige the blog owner to check the accuracy of the information being posted, comply with campaign rules, not to circulate information about the private lives of citizens and will stipulate age restrictions for users.

Violation of these demands will be punishable with a fine of 10,000-30,000 rubles for private citizens and 50,000-300,000 rubles for legal entities.

Repeating these violations within a year will lead to a fine of 30,000-50,000 rubles for private citizens and 300,000-500,000 rubles for legal entities or administrative suspension of activities for up to 30 days.

These amendments have been submitted upon the initiative prepared by a group of deputies headed by head of the State Duma committee on security and fighting corruption Irina Yarovaya of the United Russia party following terrorist attacks in Volgograd in late 2-13.

This draft law obliges private citizens and legal entities to inform the Federal Service for Supervision in Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) on the start of delivering information on the Internet and storing data on information posted on the Internet for six months.Hmmmm.....How long before 'Islamist' Erdogan follows the example?