SOCHI, September 17. /TASS/. An international journalistic organization should be created on the basis of BRICS against the backdrop of the regression of the information space in the West, Chairman of the Federation Council Commission on Information Policy and Media Relations Alexey Pushkov told reporters.

"There is every reason for it. BRICS is still an economic and political organization with a financial aspect. It is necessary to create an information dimension within the framework of BRICS, here we can cooperate, many people from other countries will join this. This totalitarian doctrine that the West is now imposing on the world is unnatural. The doctrine proposed by the West is regressive," Pushkov said.

He also said that he sees prospects that journalists from unfriendly countries, who do not share the social and political course in their states, where the principle of liberalism is pursued and the authorities try to exclude the provision of an alternative picture of the world to society, will join such an organization.

Pushkov also noted that a bill introducing a new qualifying feature into several articles of the Criminal Code - the use of deepfake technologies, may be adopted in the first reading in the summer of 2025. "I think it will take more time, precisely because the law is unprecedented. We have never had a punishment for falsifying video footage and voices. This is a new phenomenon associated with the emergence of artificial intelligence. It will take a lot of work. I hope that by the end of the legislative year, that is, by next summer, it will be adopted at least in the first reading, after which there will be some further revision. I think that this work will take about six months to a year,"he said.

According to the bill, defamation committed using the image or voice (including fake or artificially created) of the victim, as well as using the victim's biometric data, will be punished by a fine of up to 1.5 mln rubles ($16,393) or imprisonment for up to two years. Fraud using such technologies may be punished by a fine of up to 400,000 rubles ($4,372) or imprisonment for up to six years.