The State Duma Committee on Information Policy recommended to adopt in first reading a bill on news aggregators

In February, a bill was introduced in the State Duma, which introduces a special legal regime for “news aggregators” - Internet resources with attendance of over 1 million per day, which collect, process and disseminate information.

According to the plan, a register of such resources should be kept by Roskomnadzor. The project obliges news aggregators to “verify the accuracy of the disseminated socially significant information.”

The State Duma Committee on Information Policy recommended that the lower house adopt in first reading a bill, according to RIA Novosti. The first reading of the bill is scheduled for April 19.
')
For the publication of inaccurate information, an extrajudicial “taking measures to curb the dissemination of inaccurate information” on the complaint of authorized bodies is provided.

The share of foreign funding of such resources should not exceed 20%.

For failure to comply with the requirements of the bill, the owners of the news aggregator face an administrative fine in the amount of from 100 to 200 thousand rubles for individuals; in the amount of from 300 to 500 thousand rubles for officials; from 800 thousand to a million rubles for legal entities.

Repeated committing an administrative offense entails the imposition of a fine on citizens in the amount of from 300 to 400 thousand rubles; on officials - in the amount of from 600 to 800 thousand rubles, on legal entities - from 2 to 3 million rubles.

According to the bill, the news aggregator, whose attendance is more than 1 million users per day, is obliged to check the accuracy of socially significant information prior to its dissemination and delete it as directed by Roskomnadzor.

However, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Leonid Levin did not rule out that the provision on the pre-moderation of materials could be removed from the bill for the second reading. The proposal to make the aggregators responsible for the information they disseminate the committee, in its opinion, calls redundant. Since, according to the law on mass media, journalists are obliged to check the accuracy of the published information, the aggregators, if responsibility is introduced, will duplicate this duty, the committee believes.

Also, the committee for the second reading recommended clarifying in the draft law the very concept of a news aggregator. This was said at the meeting by a member of the committee Roman Chuichenko, who reported the position of the committee, RBC reports .

In February, Interfax reported that the Ministry of Communications opposed a bill that equated news aggregators with the media.

Market participants believe that the bill threatens the work of news services. Among them are Yandex.News, Google News, Rambler.News and other news aggregators. Because of this, publications can lose on average 25% of traffic.