Screenshot Kommersant
The Russian Federation will soon restrict its military members from posting information on social media, following concern in other developed countries about the same practice.
The government submitted to the State Duma a bill prohibiting servicemen from spreading information about themselves and their colleagues on the Internet and the media. This refers to the location of troops, departmental affiliation and other official activities. The expert says that the publication of such data is not only in Russia, but similar measures are being taken by the military departments of different countries.
The explanatory note to the bill says that the government decided to develop it after analyzing the activities of the Russian armed forces in Syria. The servicemen, the document says, represent a “special interest” for the special services of individual states, terrorist and extremist organizations, and information on the Internet and the media is used for “information and information-psychological impact,” and “for the formation of a biased assessment of the state policy of the Russian Federation.”
If the bill is adopted, the military will not be able to disclose their departmental affiliation, to report anything about their official activities and the work of other servicemen, military units, organizations and units in which the servicemen are serving, and the location of their deployment.
For violation, a serviceman may be brought to disciplinary responsibility upon the commander’s decision. A contract worker can be fired, wrote Russian news outlet Kommersant.
The U.S. military has issued similar directives due to servicemen in the Middle East wearing ‘Fitbits’ and broadcasting their physical training locations to the world.
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The FBI has warned in the past that the Islamic State was targeting American servicemen and their families at their homes by accessing their social media.
