A government council doesn’t like the Russian federal censor’s latest initiative

About a week after Roskomnadzor started blocking millions of IP addresses in an effort to cut off access to the instant messenger Telegram, the agency published draft legislation that would empower it to determine independently what Internet addresses contain illegal information — “in the event that there are errors” in orders from the police or courts.

According to the newspaper Kommersant, an expert government council is withholding its support for the bill, arguing that Roskomnadzor is trying to expand its powers “unreasonably.”

Internet specialists speculate that Roskomnadzor’s legislative initiative is intended to provide legal grounds for its decision to block almost 20 million IP addresses in its campaign against Telegram. The messenger remains accessible for most Russian users, but Roskomnadzor’s actions against Amazon and Google cloud computing have disrupted dozens of other online services.