The parliament of Kazakhstan passed the law to bind bloggers pay internet advertising taxes and to counter fake news.
The authors of the draft law claim that the need for regulation of bloggers’ activity and online space arose a long time ago because of the active online scam, cyberbullying and illegal advertising.
“Today, the internet receives huge financial flows, including the ones from advertisers. We are aware that legal relations and interactions in this sphere are mainly in the grey zone. We are aware that many active users are paid under the table. They use internet to create pyramid schemes, to engage in illegal charity,” deputy Aidos Sarym said.
According to the deputy, the draft law would protect regular internet users. They will be able to differentiate between the blogger’s personal opinion and paid advertising. The point is that bloggers will have to mark native and targeted advertising, sponsored content – all these notions are “new” to the legal framework of Kazakhstan.
Penalty for advertising
The draft law (it will become the law once it is endorsed by the president) will give Kazakhstan such new legal notion as blogger (also known as influencer).
The document defines this notion as follows: a user of the online platform, who publishes information addressed to an indefinite group of people in purpose of entrepreneurship. Deputy Aidos Sarym said,
“These are people who have a rather high social support, basis, who earn money this way, who can affect the opinion, who sell goods using their fame.”
To make monetary relationships on the internet more transparent, influencers will be obliged to open separate accounts for advertising revenue; they will have to pay taxes from this money. Tax inspectorate can check legality of money source.
Blogger and communications specialist Alisher Yelikbaev said that it is quite a common situation among bloggers not to pay taxes from advertising revenue.
“We speak about a blogger who receives money from various sources, from various companies. And this market needs to become civilised sooner or later,” Yelikbaev said.
However, according to him, bloggers could face a problem when non-advertising materials would raise questions in tax office. For example, if a blogger gives recommendations, which he/she wasn’t paid for. It is quite unclear how to prove what is advertising and what is unpaid recommendation.
Duplication of laws
According to PR consultant Rinat Balgabaev, there is the basis behind the goals set by legislators.
“Some online platforms might need to be brought in line with the laws of Kazakhstan. However, media laws, tax code and other documents have such norms. Our existing laws are enough,” Rinat said.
Diana Okremova, director of foundation “Legal Media Centre”, has the same opinion, “Our deputies say that the law has two good intentions. The first one is to control bloggers, who receive advertising money and do not pay taxes. The second one is to protect our society from fake news, involvement in financial pyramids, etc.”
She agrees that taxes must be paid from advertising revenue. But instruments to collect taxes are already specified in other laws, e.g., Tax Code.
However, the struggle against financial pyramids requires a more consistent approach. According to the expert, the state misses the main aspect – raising media awareness of the public and developing critical thinking skills.
“Despite the responsibility to be introduced, scammers will still exist unless media literacy is improved,” Okremova said.
Self-censorship law
Aidos Sarym emphasised that deputies are not going to “over-regulate” bloggers’ activity by adopting the law. However, according to Alisher Yelikbaev, the draft law could become another leverage on bloggers, although it can hardly affect the situation because there are enough other ways to affect influencers in Kazakhstan.
“When a knife, sword, spear, arrow have already been stabbed into a dead body, yet another needle won’t make a difference,” Yelikbaev aid.
Experts also noted that the law could strengthen self-censorship of users.
“We have a very developed self-censorship, when bloggers have a fear of authorities and make careful statements. The new law will add restrictions in people’s minds,” Rinat Balgabaev said.
Diana Okremova also said that the law on online advertising introduces administrative responsibility for false information, “It will make people filter their words before they post them on the internet. It could become a ‘law on self-censorship’.”
Platforms under supervision
A particular portion of the draft law is dedicated to the operation of online platforms in Kazakhstan. Moreover, legislators included messengers into the list of online platforms.
It is noteworthy that the first version of the draft law contained the norm on “physical presence”. In other words, initiators of amendments planned to introduce requirements for online platforms to open their offices in Kazakhstan and to appoint citizens of Kazakhstan as heads of such offices. According to Ruslan Daiyrbekov, founder of Eurasian Digital Foundation, this norm contradicts the law “On informational support” and it was removed from the final version of the law due to public response.
However, the document still contains a norm that binds particular online platforms to appoint their legal representatives in coordination with state authorities of Kazakhstan. This obligation applies if over 100 thousand users residing in the republic use the platform every month.
Also, the draft law in fact approves the “right to oblivion” in Kazakhstan. Thus, a user can demand that the representative of the online platform remove information, which the user considers false. In the document, false information means information that “is contrary to the fact, or contains material misrepresentation that creates false belief of events, phenomena and processes reported in any form.” If the platform refuses to annihilate the data, the user can go to court.
According to deputy Aidos Sarym, the notion of “false information” will also let decriminalise distribution of such information. In other words, there will not be any criminal responsibility for false information, but there will be administrative fines for it.
Main photo: Freepik.com
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