On April 16 the Public Chamber hosted a session of a Committee of the Public Chamber of RF on Communications, Information Policy and Freedom of Speech in Mass Media, where members of the Public Chamber, representatives of the Federation Council, State Duma, Ministry of IT and Communications, Superior Court and General Prosecutor’s Office, experts discussed the perspectives of legislative regulation of the Internet.

Speeches were delivered by Pavel Astakhov, lawyer, member of the Public Chamber of RF; Lyudmila Narusova, Chairman of the Commission of the Federation Council on Information Policy; Vitaliy Volkov, member of the Public Chamber of RF, Head of Directorate of the All-Russian State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company "Saint-Petersburg", Vice-President of ASMI, President of the Journalists League; Vladimir Slutsker, Deputy Chairman of the Joint Commission on National Policy and Relations between the State and Religious Associations under the Federation Council; Yury Akinshin, Deputy Chief of Administration on Television and Radio Broadcasting and Mass Media of the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications; Mark Tverdynin, Chairman of the Board of Regional Public Center of Internet-Technologies; Mikhail Fedotov, Secretary of the Journalists Union of RF; Yuri Hohlov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Institute of the Information Society (IIS), and other mass media and internet-community representatives.

The main report at the session was delivered by Pavel Astakhov. According to his opinion Internet became an inherent part of civilization, and it has its benefits and implications. Mr. Astahov noted that so called cybercrimes often remain unpunished because Internet space does not have its own legislative foundation.

According to Senator Lyudmila Narusova cases of missing children and crimes committed by maniacs, which became more frequent, are entailed by lack of control in the Internet. In connection with this Senator Narusova put forward an initiative on restriction of Internet permissiveness. According to her words in Russia "not the actions but only consequences are punished" as a rule.

The problem of dependence on virtual reality was made public by Vitaliy Volkov. According to his data two thirds of Runet users admit that they communicate in the Internet more than in reality. He is also concerned that children are mostly subjects to Internet dependence.

Vice-President of Media Union, member of the Public Chamber of RF Elena Zelinskaya stated that one should not hurry when it comes to establishment of amendments in the law "On Mass Media" concerning Internet. This point of view was supported by Yury Akinshin: "The existing legislative mechanism is enough for a sound progressive development of the Internet in Russia, one cannot follow the way of new prohibitions, especially solely in the Internet". According to Mr. Akinshin, registering Internet resources as mass media would be a difficult task because many of them are registered outside Russia.

Yuri Hohlov cited real statistical data regarding number of Internet users in Russia. At a special session "Runet Today: Events, Figures, Facts" within the recent Russian Internet Forum (RIF-2008) organized by IIS the following facts, coordinated with leading sociological marketing services exploring Runet, were made public: by the end of 2007 the annual Internet audience in Russia exceeded 25% of adult (18+) population of the country. This makes about 30 mln. Russians. For comparison, in Norway the annual Internet audience in 2007 made up 91% of the population. The second problem, as emphasized by Yuri Hohlov, which we face in Russia, is difficulty justice realization for illegal activities involving Internet technologies use. Russian legislation has no concepts and mechanisms of proving that this or that e-document, this or that e-transaction were carried out in a certain place by a certain person. While legislation of developed countries has long ago set equal electronic and paper documents, thus providing for their juridical relevance, Russian legislation must be in keeping with other countries’ legislations.

Mikhail Yakushev, member of the IIS Board of Directors, also took part in the discussion. "Internet is a part of us. And what happens in Russian Internet is the reflection of processes, which take place in our country. On the back of the world-wide Internet Runet is a pygmy. If to count how many sites we have, how many resources in Russian, then we will see that on a scale of the world Internet from our territory’s point of view and from the point of view of economic potential it is an insignificant percent. This means that main events will happen in future. Russian does not take up the place which it can actually take up in the Internet field, - Mr. Yakushev said. - When it comes to children pornography the situation is not that bad, the Ministry of Internal Affairs works, General Prosecutor’s Office works. Children pornography does not occupy the same space in our Internet as in American".

Source: materials of press office of the Public Chamber of RF (http://www.oprf.ru/newsblock/news/1729/chamber_news).