Photos of Russian military personnel will disappear from social networks
Today, the State Duma in the first reading adopted a bill that would prohibit Russian military personnel from publicly publishing information about themselves and their colleagues, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
This is stated in a message on the State Duma website.
The draft law was developed by the government in September. The authorities believe that the military should not share with others, including the media, information that could potentially reveal details about the service, the activities of military units, their location... Employees will be prohibited, among other things, from posting photos and videos on social networks and putting geolocation tags .
As stated in the explanatory note to the bill posted on the State Duma website, military personnel are prohibited from posting in the media and the Internet “information about themselves and other military personnel that allows them to disclose their departmental affiliation, information about their official activities...”.
The laws provide for exceptions to the ban, but it is not clear from the text of the document in which cases concessions can be made: “Except for the cases provided for by regulatory legal acts.”
Moreover, the ban, if the law is adopted, will also apply to foreign military personnel.
The explanatory note provides justification for the need to introduce this measure. Thus, it is reported that an analysis of the activities of the Russian Armed Forces - including in Syria - showed that the Russian military is of particular interest to the intelligence services of a number of states, as well as terrorist organizations. And information posted by the military on social networks is used for informational and psychological influence, in some cases - to form a biased assessment of Russian foreign policy, the document notes.
For violating the ban, a serviceman will be subject to disciplinary action by the commander. The ban will not apply to those dismissed from military service.
Photos of Russian soldiers will disappear from social media.