MOSCOW, May 29 (Itar-Tass) —— State regulation of the Internet should be confined to protection of children from inadmissible content and protection of copyright and intellectual property rights, Russia’s new Minister of Communications Nikolai Nikiforov said on Tuesday in an interview with the Russia Today television channel.
“It goes without saying, there should be no restrictions on access to communications services or websites,” he said and cited Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s words that “freedom is better than the lack of freedom.” “This is a key concept and I believe that our country should be guided by this rule,” he stressed.
Apart from that, in his words, new media technologies and electronic communications tools are “a good example of how we can use them in a positive rather than negative way to be in touch with our citizens.”
He also pointed to the importance of promoting elements of “electronic democracy,” offering people an opportunity to influence government decisions via the Internet. “I think we can regulate this aspect at the federal level, to have all federal agencies use data received via electronic sources, be serious and conscientious about them as they are in handling regular paper-format mail,” Nikiforov said.
For these ends, he stressed, it is vital to create mechanisms of electronic information regulation at the level of the government.