Kazakhstan: Authorities tighten control over social networks
Deputies of the Parliament of Kazakhstan approved amendments to legislative acts on the protection of the rights of child, education, information and informatization. Among the proposed amendments is to oblige social networks to remove illegal content. First of all, we are talking about Internet harassment and bullying within a day from the date of getting the order from the authorized bodies.
As Jamilya Nurmanbetova, Chairman of the Committee for Social and Cultural Development, recalled at a parliamentary meeting, the concept of bullying on the Internet is enshrined in the legislation of Kazakhstan.
“The owner or other legal representatives of a foreign online platform located on the territory of Kazakhstan, the average daily access to which is more than 100,000 users per month, must appoint their legal representative for interaction with the Ministry of Information and Social Development. And this legal representative, after receiving the order, will be obliged to take measures within 24 hours to remove information that violates the requirements of the laws of the republic,” the deputy noted.
At the same time, as the developers of the bill later explained, the owners of foreign social networks will not have to open their official representative office in Kazakhstan, as previously proposed, but only appoint a representative who can be geographically located in any country, but at the same time will be required to be in constant contact with the Kazakh Ministry of Information and Social Development. According to MP Dinara Zakiyeva, agreements have already been reached on this issue with Facebook and Instagram and, moreover, their representatives, who are in Hong Kong, have been appointed.
As ACCA already reported, in September last year, the Parliament of Kazakhstan approved the draft law “On amendments and additions to certain legislative acts on the protection of the rights of child”, which contained mechanisms for blocking foreign Internet platforms, social networks and messengers. Among them are mandatory registration in Kazakhstan, the opening of official representative offices, as well as the requirement to store data of Kazakhstani users on servers located inside the country.
These amendments caused a negative assessment among the citizens. A petition appeared on Avaaz public petitions website demanding that these amendments not be adopted.
“We consider the proposed norms to be repressive and aimed not at regulating, but at controlling the Internet, that is, in fact, at introducing censorship in the country, which is expressly prohibited by the Constitution and international human rights standards,” the petition said. “We are convinced that the tactic of introducing amendments under the pretext of protecting the rights of child is manipulation. The adoption of these amendments will cause great international damage to the country’s reputation and will roll Kazakhstan back in socio-political development. It also contradicts the obligations of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the field of human rights, of which digital rights are part, namely the right to access and disseminate information, including the right of children to receive and disseminate information; the right to privacy; the right to freedom of association on the Internet; and other human rights. Any state-imposed restrictions on human rights, even for legitimate reasons, such as the fight against cyberbullying, shouldn’t deprive a person of his/her other rights.”
