The meeting was initiated by a rights defending movement Soprotivlenie
(Resistance) and the Regional Social Centre of Internet Technologies. The round
table became the first ever act of such close cooperation of the
law-enforcement agencies and Internet-companies.
According to the Russian authorities, selling porn with participation of minor
children is one of the most profitable kinds of illegal business. The majority
of child porn websites are registered in the USA, and 10% percent of such
resources fall on Russia.
Nikolai Ovchinnikov, deputy head of the Ministry proposed a number of
amendments to the Russian law concerning criminal responsibility for storage
and spread of child pornography.
One of the issues discussed at the round table was a possibility of
self-regulation of the Russian Internet. In particular, the round table
participants expressed an opinion that fighting child porn would be more
efficient if the Internet users reported illegal websites of certain thematic
to the law-enforcement agencies.
However, the statistics shows that the users are quite passive in terms of
taking any actions when spotting an illegal website. The reality shows that the
Internet community is not morally ready for self-regulation. Instead of helping
the law in child porn fight (for doing this it is enough to leave a message
with link at the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) the Internet
users tend to only take the diversity of websites on the net as a sign of
revolutionary freedom and think that on the Internet everyone is free to do
whatever they want. The users` inactivity often makes the law organs take
forceful measures in order to fight the cyber criminals.
