Russian State Duma Speaker Says Legal Precedents On Social Media Reposts Must Be Studied

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th August, 2018) Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Saturday he did not rule out the possibility of meeting with Mail.ru Group officials to discuss possible decriminalization of Criminal Code articles related to responsibility for reposts in social media, noting the need to study law enforcement practice in that sphere.

Earlier this week, Mail.ru Group, which controls and operates the Russia's largest and most popular social networking sites, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, sent a request to the State Duma to initiate the introduction of a bill on amnesty for people convicted for activity in social networks, in particular, for likes, re-posts and publication of images. The company also appealed to the Supreme Court to summarize the judicial practice in criminal cases providing for responsibility for crimes committed via the internet in order to prevent the recurrence of such cases in the future. It also asked the Justice Ministry to develop a clear methodology for conducting linguistic expertise.

"I received the appeal and sent it to the heads of the relevant committees to study and prepare proposals. I do not rule out that if necessary, I will meet with the initiators who addressed this letter. We need to generalize and study the law enforcement practice of this issue," Volodin told reporters.

The politician stressed that he supported the company's decision to turn to the Supreme Court to study and summarize the law enforcement practice.