+1 black list in Russia

In Russia, there is an openly updated Federal list of extremist materials that are not allowed to be massively distributed and stored for the purpose of distribution - that is, in particular, it is forbidden to facilitate their access to the Internet. Violation of the prohibition is subject to criminal penalties.

In Russia there is a secretly replenished black list of sites that are forbidden to visit, because they are theoretically capable of harming children. At first, the closure of the site was the only countermeasure, but more recently criminal penalties have been proposed, as I mentioned earlier ( May 6, 2013 ) from the Izvestia newspaper.

Getting into each of the two lists seems to be somewhat arbitrary - in particular, at Habrahabr, dozens of cases of too cruel or too widespread use of repression were mentioned, when, under the pretext of fighting propaganda (extremist, narcotic, suicidal, pedophile, etc.), they did not suffer much culprits or random people (neighbors for blog hosting, video hosting, IP address). It seems that any ordinary Setyan can be grabbed at any moment and be finished with him, as with a sheep from a herd.
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However, this was not enough. Today (May 8), an article appeared in Izvestia : “ Russia is creating a register of prohibited extremist symbols ” with a story about the Ministry of Justice’s intention to create another black list, which this time will contain characters that can defame the state flag with one type and the anthem of the Russian Federation (as well as flags, emblems and anthems of subjects of the Russian Federation, municipalities, foreign states, religious symbols), as well as insult racial, national or religious feelings.

So far we are talking only about the relatively mild prohibition against these symbols, which prevent their use as emblems of non-profit organizations (NGOs), public and religious associations.

However, it is difficult to resist the appeal to treat this bill with cautious, hostile attention. And I call, I call it for this!

First, on the example of the black list of sites, we recently saw that a soft ban could easily turn into harsh penalties in the form of fines and long prison terms, if the legislator so wishes. In addition, the scope of such a ban may expand: for example, a ban on storage will be introduced along with a ban on use, and then IT professionals will have to strain themselves, checking the width of the symbolic fonts installed on computers, for example.

Secondly, the completion of the black lists does not know I will hold. It is difficult to hold even in the mind of the line beyond which an offense occurs. Have we not all become unwitting witnesses of how the “ EVE Online ” game site was closed for “drugs” (where the use of fictional chemicals was described for fictional characters), for “ suicide propaganda ” - simple humor ( an article in Absurdopedia or Kaganov's texts ) or horror films about supernatural compulsion to suicide (so that it is under the guise of children's suicide withdraw from the sale of manga «Death Note» in Sverdlovsk region - although one of these hypocrites is not interested, for example, immortalized in the title of this particular field on me one of the organizers of the murder of the last Emperor of children), for "extremism" - a nationally-targeted anti-alcohol propaganda (№1568 in the federal list of extremist materials ), trade union agitation (№443, №444) and the anti-crisis satire (№446).

Wouldn’t the replenishment of the new registry of prohibited characters be similarly wide? But not that, you know, any extreme cases come to mind from the legal experience of Western barbarians ...

This April, a French citizen was detained by police during a picnic in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris. The reason for the detention was the jacket, which depicts a heterosexual family (mother, father and two children) holding hands. The police decided that this symbol offends the feelings of sexual minorities .

In the film “Brother-2”, the Negro staff uses a racist insult “snowflake” to the white character. Wouldn't it be an extremist custom of internet sites to make snowflakes fall on New Year's Eve?

Or is this not possible in Russia?