Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin approved the composition of the government commission to determine the list of free socially significant information resources, it includes the heads of telecommunications and IT companies and media holdings, as well as representatives of federal authorities. This was announced on Thursday, December 30, on the official website of the Russian government.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, who is in charge of state policy issues in the field of mass communications and the media, was appointed head of the commission.
“Among the representatives of the media are VGTRK General Director Oleg Dobrodeyev, Head of Channel One Konstantin Ernst, Editor-in-Chief of ANO TV-Novosti Margarita Simonyan, Head of National Media Group JSC Svetlana Balanova, Head of Gazprom-Media Holding JSC Alexander Zharov “, – the message says.
The commission also included the Minister of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media Maksut Shadayev, the head of Roskomnadzor Andrey Lipov, the head of the State Duma committee on information policy, information technology and communications Alexander Khinshtein and the head of the department for the development of information and communication technologies and communications infrastructure of the President of the Russian Federation Tatyana Matveeva …
The main task of the commission is to make decisions on the inclusion of various online resources in the number of socially significant ones. These decisions will be made, taking into account the proposals of the Ministry of Finance.
It will be possible to use these resources for free even with a zero balance on the subscriber’s account, the government noted. In addition, their use will not affect the amount of used Internet traffic.
Mikhail Mishustin also signed a decree on the rules for maintaining a list of these online resources. In particular, such resources may include Russian social networks with a daily audience of more than 5 million users.
Earlier, on December 1, the law on free access to socially significant sites came into force. The law that came into force amended Article 54 of the Federal Law “On Communications”, according to which subscribers of telecom operators will be able to use access to sites from the list of socially significant ones, even with a negative account balance.
As part of an experiment that the government has been conducting since August, about 400 resources were selected, including portals for a number of media outlets, museums and cultural institutions, government bodies and Internet search engines. It is reported that the formation of the regulatory framework for the implementation of this project has now been completed.
The initiative on free access to socially significant sites was first made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in his message to the Federal Assembly in 2020.
Source: IZ
Jane Stock is a technology author, who has written for 24 Hours World. She writes about the latest in technology news and trends, and is always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to improve his audience’s experience.
