In mid-July 2012, protests against the activities of legislators in the State Duma of the Russian Federation took place on several highly visited resources in the Russian-speaking part of the Internet. The social network VKontakte, the Yandex search engine, the LiveJournal blog service and the Russian-language section of Wikipedia expressed their protests in various forms.
The Russian-language section of Wikipedia was closed for approximately 24 hours on July 10-11, 2012 - all requests for articles returned the same text with a banner. The text reported that the community is protesting against the amendments to the law "On Information" being discussed in the State Duma of the Russian Federation. It argued that the amendments could become the basis for introducing censorship on the Internet, as well as the text frightened readers with the "great Chinese firewall" and "closing access to Wikipedia throughout the country." In conclusion, it was reported that you can help the community by disseminating information, addressing the deputies and the president.
Specialists of the Yandex search engine also expressed their negative attitude to the bill №89417-6, submitted to the highest legislative body of the country. However, here it was done in a less radical form, without blocking user access. The word “everything” in the slogan “Everything will be found” was crossed out with red lines, and the hyperlink led to a page with an appeal signed by Elena Kolmanovskaya, chief editor of Yandex. The appeal pointed out the need to strike a balance between measures to combat child pornography, illegal content and the constitutional principles of freedom of speech and access to information. Yandex suggested not to rush to the adoption of the bill, but to discuss it "in open areas."
The controversial bill was submitted to the State Duma for consideration by all of its four factions. Its principles began to be developed by the non-profit organization "League of Safe Internet", which seven months ago presented the main provisions for discussion on its website. In the spring, they were considered at the Ministry of Communications and Communications and at an open conference held in the Moscow region. On June 7, 2012, the revised draft law was submitted to the State Duma on behalf of the Committee on Family, Women and Children, and on July 6 passed the first reading. It was only at this stage that shortcomings in the wording caused an active negative reaction in society, among technical specialists and human rights defenders. During the second and third readings of the bill, most of the amendments were adopted.
