Residents of Kazakhstan are at risk of no access to social media and messengers. Representatives of the lower house of parliament passed the draft law in a first reading that binds foreign social media and messengers to register in the country, otherwise they could be blocked.
The two laws, “On informational support” and “On communications”, are being amended. The first one shall be amended to contain the following requirements:
- To be able to work in Kazakhstan, owners and other legal representatives of a foreign online platform or messenger must undergo state registration as a legal entity or a branch of foreign legal entities;
- Foreigners or stateless persons may not act as chiefs of branches of the foreign online platform or instant messaging service in the Republic of Kazakhstan;
- Upon receipt of an order for taking measures on following recommendations or a decision made by an authority in charge of information, the chief of a branch of the foreign online platform in the Republic of Kazakhstan must implement it within 24 hours – either delete information that violates the laws of the Republic of Kazakhstan, or limit its distribution in the country;
- If the foreign online platform or the messenger fails to undergo the mandatory state registration of a legal entity or a branch of foreign legal entity within six months after the above standards were enforced, the operations of these resources shall be restricted in Kazakhstan.
The law “On communications” of Kazakhstan shall be amended as follows:
- Ministry of Information and Public Development (MIOR) shall determine the procedure of restriction of access to illegal content, suspension and renewed access to internet resources that publish content that is illegal or otherwise restricted to distribution by the laws of Kazakhstan or court decrees that became enforceable, and access to which was suspended by an order issued by an authority in charge of information;
- MIOR keeps a unified register of internet resources that publish illegal or restricted content, and also content access to which was suspended by recommendation of the Prosecutor-General of Kazakhstan or their deputies, as well as recommendation of MIOR.
“The state can block any social media without this law. The authorities have the leverage to block messengers without any laws or notices. We want to regulate this process as much as practical to avoid lack of organisation,” Aidos Sarym, the deputy of the lower house of parliament of Kazakhstan, said at the session.
According to deputies, cyberbullying on children has given rise to amendments to the laws. The number of such cases in the republic has doubled over the last year.
According to Kemelbek Oishybayev, vice minister of information and public development, the agency detected nearly 70 thousand facts of cyberbullying in 2020, and nearly 1,800 messages requesting to delete materials were sent to administrators of social media and messengers. In 2021, these figures increased up to 140 thousand facts.
“Unfortunately, not all social media and messengers give feedback to our messages. Some social media respond to our messages and delete materials, and some do not. Up to 20-30 per cent receive the reaction to our messages. […] According to the report of the relevant committee of the Mazhilis, the purpose of the draft law is to shape an efficient legal basis for the overall regulation of public relations in the area of protection of children’s rights,” Oishybayev said at the meeting of the lower chamber of parliament.
Prospects of blocking
However, not all are as optimistic as the government and members of parliament. Anara Tulenova, a social media manager, does not see anything positive about new amendments and thinks that cyberbullying is just an excuse for blocking social media.
“The authorities of Kazakhstan have long attempted to block Facebook because this platform helped citizens organise land protests in 2016. Since then, there is the silent war against Facebook. The authorities fear social media, that’s a fact. There is another way to fight cyberbullying. If they start blocking, citizens would all download VPN,” Tulenova said.
A young mother and Instagram blogger, Asel Zhanaidarova, earns her bread via Instagram. If the social media gets blocked, the woman will lose her income.
“I earn 10,000 tenge (23.55 dollars) every day due to advertising and targeting. This is not much, but it’s enough to live on. If Instagram gets blocked, I will have to find night work because child allowances are scanty and food prices go up every day. They’d better improve the national economy, attract investments than block social media. A lot of commercial firms, product brands and services are available via such platforms. So many families make their living on social media,” she said.
According to Digital 2021, there are 12 million social media users in Kazakhstan or 63.5 per cent of population. According to bloggers, the maximum price of advertising on Instagram was 1 million tenge (2.59 thousand dollars) for a post, and the minimum price was 130 tenge (0.31 dollar).
According to blogger Aleksei Longinov, TikTok has become very popular recently not only among young people, but also among 40+ people.
“However, this social media does not have a representative office in Kazakhstan because it has few bloggers here as compared to Russia. I don’t think that they will open a representative office here after the law becomes effective. Most probably, they would be blocked. People will lose their profits. It may happen that many users would move to other countries for permanent residence after the key social media outlets are blocked. This way Kazakhstan will lose its citizens who are bloggers, influencers,” Longinov said.
However, there are supporters of new amendments to the laws. According to Nurlan Iskakov, a resident of Nur-Sultan, social media have a direct impact on the economic development of the country, not to speak of the threat for information and even domestic policy security. He gave an example of coronavirus vaccination, whose pace is low in Kazakhstan.
“It has direct impact on the economic development of our country and forces the country to introduce delicate restrictions and lockdowns. Those who suffer the most are small and medium businesses, especially our national reserves, which are limited. Not to speak of overall burden on the health care system, which makes all people suffer as it leaves the people without access to all kinds of medical care due to emergency. This is the direct fault of social media,” Iskakov said.
The topic of possible blocking of social media has become the subject of memes and jokes among the Kazakhstanis:
Legally backed blocking
Blocking of internet resources is a common thing for Kazakhstan. The Hola News website was blocked in early October. According to the editorial staff, they could not access their website via providers in Kazakhstan and abroad. The editorial staff did not receive any official messages, court claims or any warnings.
They suggest that this is related to the piece of news posted by them about Kazakhstan businessmen who were on the list of international investigation “Pandora’s dossier”.
The website was unblocked in 10 days, and its founders have said they are leaving the project.
The head of Legal Media Centre Public Foundation, Diana Okremova, said that new amendments to the laws focus on control over citizens on social media rather than on protection of children’s rights.
“It is impossible to fight cyberbullying by simply blocking social media outlets as they are just a form of distribution. We are not trying to solve the problem of cyberbullying and attacks on children, but rather trying to delete the channel of distribution, in our case by blocking illegal content,” she said.
According to her, the requirement to open the representation office of a company in Kazakhstan is probably imposed to simplify the procedure of control for the authorities of Kazakhstan.
“They certainly do not care about children; they care about the possibility for the state to interfere with the freedom of speech, to breach privacy of citizens on a legal basis. The cyberbullying problem cannot be solved this way. We should come up with a normal legal framework, international practices, take a large package of measures,” Okremova said.
Some experts believe that the new law would not change anything. In 2014, the officials of Kazakhstan tried to block porn sites. Service providers were bound to restrict access to illegal content. However, nothing ever came of this. Hundreds of sex videos can be found on the internet. Moreover, the most basic search engines can be used for that.
The law that binds foreign social media and messengers to register in Kazakhstan is expected to be adopted before the end of this year.
Main photo: bournemouthrock.com