The Russian fake news laws are a group of federal laws prohibiting the dissemination of information considered "unreliable" by Russian authorities, establishing the punishment for such dissemination, and allowing the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (

Roskomnadzor The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, abbreviated as ''Roskomnadzor'' (RKN), is the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring, controlling and censoring Russian mass media. ...

) to extrajudicially block access to online media publishing such information. The most well known of these laws is the Federal Law of 4 March 2022 No.32-FZ enacted during the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

; the adoption of this law caused the mass exodus of foreign

media Media may refer to: Communication * Means of communication, tools and channels used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Interactive media, media that is inter ...

from

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and termination of the activity of independent Russian media.

2019 Fake News Law

On 18 March 2019,

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

signed the law No.31-FZ allowing the

to block access to any online media in case of revealing an "unreliable information". On the same day, Putin signed the law No.27-FZ establishing the administrative fines for natural persons and juridical persons for publication of "unreliable information".

2019 Disrespect to Authorities Law

On 18 March 2019, Putin signed the law No.28-FZ that punishes "blatant disrespect online for the state, the authorities, the public, the Russian flag or the constitution" by a fine or by imprisonment for up to 15 days in the case of repeat offences, and the law No.30-FZ also allows the Roskomnadzor to request the removal of such "disrespectful statements".

2020 COVID-19 Fake News Law

On 1 April 2020, Putin signed the laws No.99-FZ and No.100-FZ establishing the administrative and criminal punishment for a dissemination of unreliable information about circumstances that threat to life and health of a citizen including epidemic, natural and technological disasters, emergency, and measures to ensure the security. These laws were aimed at making illegal any doubts as to the nature of COVID-19 and the reasonableness of the measures to combat the epidemic.

2022 war censorship laws

On 4 March 2022, in the background of the ongoing

, Putin signed the laws No.31-FZ and No.32-FZ, often referred to as the "fakes law" (

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

: ''закон о фейках''). The bill amended the

Criminal Code of the Russian Federation The Russian Criminal Code () is the prime source of the Law of the Russian Federation concerning criminal offences. The 1996 Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (UGKRF) came into force on 1 January 1997. The new Criminal Code replaced the So ...

, which was supplemented by the article 207.3 "Public dissemination of knowingly false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation." It introduced criminal liability for the dissemination of knowingly false information about the actions of the

Russian Armed Forces The Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, commonly referred to as the Russian Armed Forces, are the military of Russia. They are organized into three service branches—the Russian Ground Forces, Ground Forces, Russian Navy, Navy, and Russi ...

, the maximum punishment under the article was 15 years imprisonment. The Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code of Russia was also supplemented by the articles 280.3 and 284.2. According to the article 280.3, the "discrediting" of Russian Armed Forces and its operations, including the calls for prevention of the use of Russian Armed Forces for the interests of the Russian Federation is punishable by imprisonment for a term of five years. The article 284.2 established responsibility for calls by a Russian citizen to impose sanctions against Russia, Russian citizens or Russian legal entities; such calls are punishable by imprisonment for a term of three years. The same actions were included into new articles 20.3.3 and 20.3.4 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses. The first call against the use of

or the call for sanctions on Russia is punishable with a heavy fine according to the Code on Administrative Offenses, the second call is punishable with imprisonment according to the Criminal Code. On 25 March 2022, Vladimir Putin signed the laws No.62-FZ and No.63-FZ, that amended Article 20.3.3 of the RF Code of Administrative Offenses and Article 280.3 of the RF Criminal Code. These amendments made punishable "discrediting" of exercise of the powers, carrying out by not only Russian Armed Forces but any Russian state body (including

National Guard National guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards. ...

Federal Security Service The Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation �СБ, ФСБ России (FSB) is the principal security agency of Russia and the main successor agency to the Soviet Union's KGB; its immediate predecessor was the Federal Counterin ...

, Ministry of Emergency Situations, General Prosecutor's Office, Investigative Committee,

Ministry of Foreign Affairs In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and relations, diplomacy, bilateral, and multilateral r ...

) outside Russian territory.

Effect on media

Many Russian media outlets were forced to stop covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine because of this bill, including '' Colta.ru'', ''Snob'' online magazine, ''Znak.com'', '' The Bell'' online magazine, and ''

Novaya Gazeta ''Novaya Gazeta'' (, ) is an independent Russian newspaper. It is known for its critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs, the Chechen wars, corruption among the ruling elite, and increasing authoritarianism i ...

''.

TV Rain TV Rain ( rus, Дождь, Dozhd, p=ˈdoʂtʲ, a=Ru-дождь (doʂtʲ).ogg; stylized as ДО///ДЬ) is an independent Russian-language television channel. Launched in Russia in 2010, it has been based in the Netherlands since 2022. It focuse ...

said it was temporarily suspending operations due to the enactment of the aforementioned law.

Radio Liberty Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a media organization broadcasting news and analyses in 27 languages to 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Prague since 1995, RFE/RL ...

announced that it would stop working in Russia due to the new law on fakes, but would continue to cover events in Ukraine while abroad. The following foreign news agencies and TV stations—

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg T ...

CNN Cable News Network (CNN) is a multinational news organization operating, most notably, a website and a TV channel headquartered in Atlanta. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable ne ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

RTVE The Corporación de Radio y Televisión Española (; ), known as Radiotelevisión Española (''Spanish Radio and Television'', RTVE), is the Spanish national public Broadcasting, television and radio broadcaster. It is a state-owned enterprise f ...

EFE Agencia EFE, S.A. () is a Spanish international news agency, the major Spanish language, Spanish-language multimedia news agency and the world's fourth largest wire service after the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. EFE was ...

RAI (), commercially styled as since 2000 and known until 1954 as (RAI), is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels a ...

TG5 ''TG5'' (''TeleGiornale 5'') is a news programme on the Italian TV channel Canale 5, part of the Mediaset network and owned by MFE - MediaForEurope. It is broadcast domestically on Canale 5 and TgCom24, Mediaset TGcom24 several times a day. The ...

and

ANSA Ansa (Latin for "handle") or ANSA may refer to: Organizations * Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, Italian news agency ** Ansa Mediterranean or ANSAmed, section of the above * Applied Neuroscience Society of Australasia * Association of Norw ...

—stopped working in Russia. By 7 March 2022, according to Agentstvo, over 150 journalists left Russia after Putin signed the bill into law. On 7 April 2022, to avoid prosecutions under the law, journalists from ''Novaya Gazeta'' announced the launch of ''Novaya Gazeta Europe''. Its editor-in-chief Kirill Martynov said that ''Novaya Gazeta Europe'' would be independent of ''Novaya Gazeta'', "both legally and in practice", with its newsroom made up of staffers who have left Russia. In the months following the beginning of the war, virtually all remaining independent media in Russia were terminated by the Roskomnadzor for violation of the censorship laws: liberal radio station

Echo of Moscow Echo of Moscow () was a 24/7 commercial Russian radio station based in Moscow. It broadcast in many Russian cities, some of the former Soviet republics (through partnerships with local radio stations), and via the Internet. From 1996 its editor- ...

was closed on 3 March and replaced by the propaganda outlet

Radio Sputnik Sputnik (; formerly Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti, naming derived from Russian , "satellite") is a Russian state-owned news agency and radio broadcast service. It was established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya ...

, the TV Rain channel was closed in March, online publications '' The New Times'' and ''

The Moscow Times ''The Moscow Times'' (''MT'') is an Amsterdam-based independent English-language and Russian-language online newspaper. It was in print in Russia from 1992 until 2017 and was distributed free of charge at places frequented by English-speaking to ...

'' were blocked from the internet in Russia and ''Novaya Gazeta'' was forced to suspend their publications and later shut down in September.

Similar Belarusian law

On 14 December 2021,

Alexander Lukashenko Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the first and only president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994, making hi ...

signed Law No.133-Z, amending Article 361 of the

Criminal Code of Belarus The Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus ( — КК РБ K RB — УК РБ K RB contains the fundamental laws to announce what is considered illegal to perform inside Belarus. Passed in 1999, several of these laws were carried over from law ...

. These amendments criminalized appeals for sanctions against

Belarus Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an a ...

and Belarusian legal and natural persons and established a penalty of imprisonment for up to six years for making such appeals. Appeals to foreign countries and the dissemination of such appeals are punishable by a term of imprisonment from three to 10 years. The same appeals made via the media or the internet are punishable for a term of four to 12 years. This bill was adopted in Belarus against a background of the ongoing political crisis in the country.

References

External links

"Charges for anti-war protests in Russia", Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group
{{authority control 2019 in law 2020 in law 2022 in law 2019 in Russia 2020 in Russia 2022 in Russia Law of Russia Censorship in Russia Pseudohistory Fake news Russian responses to the Russian invasion of Ukraine News media in Russia Democratic backsliding in Russia