Moscow, 14 May: Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee on Security and Prevention of Corruption Aleksandr Khinshteyn has urged Russian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka to take measures against the holders and users of accounts in social networks who actively helped organize mass disturbances in Moscow on 6 May.
"The analysis of social networks shows that a sharp rise in the number of calls for violence against officials and law-enforcement personnel was recorded in the last few days," says the MP's request to the prosecutor-general, the text of which has become available to Interfax.
Khinshteyn adds that he means the Russian-language segments of Twitter and Facebook. "The said social networks have in effect turned into a tool for coordinating extremists' actions, becoming a channel for conveying detailed instructions to their supporters," the MP maintains.
The letter asserts that there is documentary evidence to prove that, during the events in Bolotnaya Ploshchad (square in central Moscow) on 6 May, it was through Twitter that "coordination was conducted of the actions of the provocateurs who incited illegal actions against police personnel, which ended in mass disturbances as a result of which both civilians and OMON (special-purpose police detachment) fighters were injured".
"Calls to dispose of the lawfully elected president, to change the constitutional order by force, to organize fresh disturbances and acts of disobedience" are constantly being spread through a number of accounts, Khinshteyn writes.
The deputy head of the parliamentary committee asks the prosecutor-general to carry out a check, and in the process "to take measures to prevent any further spreading of unlawful and extremist calls on social networks (not least by blocking these accounts)".
Furthermore, Khinshteyn says that the holders of these accounts should be identified so as to bring them to book or take other prosecutor response measures stipulated by law.
Keywords: Russia, Internet, facebook, twitter, Social Networking - Russia, Government, Politics - Russian News - Russia
Moscow, 14 May: Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee on Security and Prevention of Corruption Aleksandr Khinshteyn has urged Russian Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka to take measures against the holders and users of accounts in social networks who actively helped organize mass disturbances in Moscow on 6 May.
"The analysis of social networks shows that a sharp rise in the number of calls for violence against officials and law-enforcement personnel was recorded in the last few days," says the MP's request to the prosecutor-general, the text of which has become available to Interfax.
Khinshteyn adds that he means the Russian-language segments of Twitter and Facebook. "The said social networks have in effect turned into a tool for coordinating extremists' actions, becoming a channel for conveying detailed instructions to their supporters," the MP maintains.
The letter asserts that there is documentary evidence to prove that, during the events in Bolotnaya Ploshchad (square in central Moscow) on 6 May, it was through Twitter that "coordination was conducted of the actions of the provocateurs who incited illegal actions against police personnel, which ended in mass disturbances as a result of which both civilians and OMON (special-purpose police detachment) fighters were injured".
"Calls to dispose of the lawfully elected president, to change the constitutional order by force, to organize fresh disturbances and acts of disobedience" are constantly being spread through a number of accounts, Khinshteyn writes.
The deputy head of the parliamentary committee asks the prosecutor-general to carry out a check, and in the process "to take measures to prevent any further spreading of unlawful and extremist calls on social networks (not least by blocking these accounts)".
Furthermore, Khinshteyn says that the holders of these accounts should be identified so as to bring them to book or take other prosecutor response measures stipulated by law.