The law on responsibility for fake news and public disrespect for authority, which passed its final reading yesterday, has been long awaited. In recent years, the more absurd an initiative proposed by deputies, the more chances it had of being approved. But what is interesting is that the level of these deputies today is such that while they intend to pass a law to protect the state from intentional disrespect, they end up doing the opposite.
Judge for yourself, here is the wording of this law: «Dissemination of information in information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet, in an indecent form that offends human dignity and public morality, explicit disrespect for society, the state, official state symbols of the Russian Federation, the Constitution of the Russian Federation, or bodies exercising state power in the Russian Federation, except for the cases provided for in Article 20.31 of this Code, if these actions do not constitute a criminal offense, shall result in the imposition of an administrative fine ranging from thirty thousand to one hundred thousand rubles.»
So, once again, «… information expressed in an indecent form that offends human dignity and public morality, explicit disrespect …». But what if the information expresses explicit disrespect in a decent form? Or, on the contrary, it expresses disrespect in an indecent form, but respects the state or its symbols (which is common in our country…)? Do the deputies even understand what they have written? And does anyone in the State Duma evaluate such bills from the point of view of basic logic and the Russian language?
With such measures, especially with such implementation, the representatives of power, who want to earn respect, will provoke a completely opposite reaction from society. The same thing happens with the protection of state symbols, whose disrespect is forbidden by this law. In theory, such measures are aimed at preventing people from demeaning their national symbolism, but rather to use it widely and be proud of it. But how does this work in practice?
Right now in Novokuznetsk, residents are trying to hold someone accountable for participating in protests with a Russian flag combined with the symbolism of the Libertarian Party, of which he is a member. So either the Libertarians’ party symbol — a snake — is being evaluated by law enforcement as something incompatible with the Russian flag (which, in our opinion, is a very successful and symbolic combination…), or this snake reminded them of something else that should not be associated with it (no comment here…). Seriously, following the same logic, tomorrow any use of colors other than the official version of the national flag could be banned — whether with snakes, birds, bears, motorcycles, or anything else.
It is clear that this would ultimately not contribute to the popularization of national symbolism in informal contexts, but rather lead to it being perceived as something official, as was the case with Soviet symbolism in the late Soviet era, when it was used officially only when ordered.
Meanwhile, the latest results of the VCIOM survey recorded a further decline in Russians’ respect for the main symbol of modern Russia — Vladimir Putin. Compared to his previous historically low rating of 33%, his rating has dropped by another 1%. Would it be appropriate to hold sociologists who conduct such surveys accountable under the new law?