BelTA offers impose control over Internet right now

• 29.04.2008, 17:44

An association of responsible Internet-publishers must be created in Belarus. Dzmitry Zhuk, the BelTA CEO, made this suggestion at the III Belarusian national informational forum “Media in Globalisation: Actual Aspects.”

All media, interested in joining the association, should keep to two conditions: take responsibility upon themselves and faithfully execute article 5 of the law “On Press and Other Media,” saying against misuse of freedom of the mass media, and publish their full data on the site of the Belarusian Union of Journalists, Dzmitry Zhuk thinks.

According to him, joining the association by the leading Belarusian media will be the first step on the way of creating a mechanism of efficient regulatory activity of these publications until a document, regulating Internet-publications activity, appears.

As the BelTA CEO noted, the association would also promote practicable consumer protection system. “A consumer should know who is responsible for the published on the Internet information (many Belarusian portals do not contain the simplest data of a creator – address or phone, not to mention other data),” Dzmitry Zhuk said.

Article 5 of the law on press says in particular: on inadmissible using of media for: criminally persecuted actions; disclosing state or other protected by law secrets; call to seizure of power, violent changing of the constitutional system.”