State Duma lawmakers are working on amendments to the law on protecting children from harmful information that would block all Internet sites containing obscene language, Izvestia reported Friday.
"The changes to the law would block not only media outlets for using obscene language, but also bloggers' accounts in social networks as well as entire sites," said Yelena Mizulina, head of the Duma's Committee on Family, Women and Children, Izvestia reported.
The initiative will be the focus of a round table discussion at the Duma on July 30, when government officials and Internet experts will be able to submit their proposals.
"We receive very many complaints from parents on the excessive amount of abusive language in Internet publications and social networks visited by children," Mizulina said.
"Parents are concerned that their children may develop a wrong stereotype that using obscene language in communication is normal, which is actually far from being the case," she said.
Lawmakers propose to blacklist Internet sites, forums and personal pages containing foul language and block access to them if offensive materials are not removed within a day.
"We are not talking about the entire social network of course, only the pages of delinquent users," Mizulina said. Her initiative would make all sites responsible for the abusive content they publish, not just media sources.
The latest initiative would go much further in placing Internet content under the control of the authorities than the 2010 version of the bill, which allows the authorities to compile a register of sites containing child pornography, drug-use propaganda or information about suicide.
Representatives of the Federal Mass Media Inspection Service were not available for comment.
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