Media regulator Roskomnadzor has said the Russian gay community site Gay.ru does not violate the recent law on gay propaganda, a news report said Monday.
Roskomnadzor audited the site after receiving a request to check the web portal for compliance with the law, regulator's spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky said, Izvestia reported.
"The checks have been conducted, and signs of breaking the law have not been identified," he said, adding that materials on the site have a visible 18+ classification marking.
The media regulator last week said that the Khabarovsk region's Molodoi Dalnevostochnik newspaper was under suspicion of violating the law for publishing an article titled "History of Gayography" about a geography teacher who was dismissed because of his sexual orientation.
Despite the obligatory 16+ warning on the newspaper's front page, the editor-in-chief received an administrative caution notice that the article propagated homosexual relations, though no charges have been filed.
Ampelonsky told Izvestia that Gay.ru passed the regulator's check because unlike the newspaper, it is not registered as a mass media publication and therefore the 18+ sign was enough to make the site compliant with the law.
Individuals can be fined up to 100,000 rubles ($3,039) and business entities up to 1 million rubles if found guilty of promoting non-traditional sexual relations to minors.
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