Officially Russia will be a country censored on the internet

During the last weeks there has been a lot of talk about what is happening in Russia in regards to internet censorship.

Earlier this month, we learn that the Russian president wants his own internet and a law that would create a single central from where Moscow could manage the flow of information from its cyberspace law requiring Russian Internet service providers to guarantee the independence of the Russian Internet space (Runet), so that you can disconnect the country from the rest of the country.

A few days later, we also learned that, in Russia, thousands of people protested against the bill on Internet restriction, which aims to cut off the country from the rest of the world.

As well It is important to remember what happened last week with the news that the encrypted mail provider ProtonMail was blocked in Russia.

Where the alleged reason was that the service had allowed the spread of bomb threatsas several anonymous bomb threats were sent by email to the police in late January, forcing several schools and government buildings to evacuate.

Vladimir Putin approved the new Internet censorship law

And it seems that things are going in the same direction since Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a series of bills on Monday controversial that penalize the indifference of the state and the online dissemination of false information.

Russia has never really been a liberal democracy and the government has always used unorthodox means to pressure the country's independent media. But with the new legislation, the Russian government now has more direct tools to censor speech online.

Despite that the accounts were overwhelmingly approved by both houses of the Russian parliament, It is important to note that some legislators criticized them because they find that this is stifling freedom of expression.

Fine or jail

Therefore, With these new rules, people can be sentenced to fines and imprisonment if they publish documents online that indicates a lack of respect for society, the State, the official symbols of the Russian Federation, the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the organs that exercise state power.

Fines for spreading fake news are up to 1,5 million rubles or approximately $ 22900 for repeat offenses.

By insulting the symbols of the state, the authorities or Putin himself can be punished by law and the penalties can reach 300000 rubles or about $ 4700 and 15 days in prison. As in the case of other Russian laws, fines are calculated on the basis of whether the offender is a citizen, an administrator or a legal person.

These measures sparked backlash and more than 100 journalists, as well as public figures, including human rights activist Zoya Svetova and popular writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya, who signed a petition against the law, which they describe as outright censorship.

But, of course, the Kremlin does not share this opinion at all.

Furthermore, through its spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin says that The behavior sanctioned by the new legislation is framed very strictly in several countries around the world, including Europe, and it should come as no surprise that Russia is seen to do the same.

In the last 5 years, the Russian government has gradually strengthened its control over the Internet, for example, requiring search engines to remove certain search results or imposing on social networks to store personal data of users of Servers in the country.

Since these measures had not been appreciated, the bill signed last Monday does not come to fix things.

Things for the people of Russia do not seem to be well because we must also remember that the popular instant messaging service Telegram is also blocked in Russia.

And it is that this has been happening little by little, what seems like a gradual isolation where the Russian government wants to have control of the distribution of information about its territory.