Blog for the sake of the blog: RKN denied registration of one-third of influencers-ten-thousandths of them

About a third of major bloggers-ten thousand bloggers-were refused registration of their resources via the Gosuservices portal. In total, more than 41 thousand applications were submitted. At the same time, according to experts, the blogosphere has hundreds of thousands of accounts, the authors of which must verify the pages. Roskomnadzor named the main reasons for the refusals, and the Ministry of Digital Media gave recommendations on the correct execution of applications. Experts agreed that the blogosphere is in no hurry to register, and most of the refusals were due to low digital literacy.

The RKN register of bloggers

Owners of channels and pages in social networks since November 1 have submitted more than 41 thousand applications for registration through "Gosuservices", reported "Izvestia" in Roskomnadzor (RKN). As of December 3 , over 22 thousand of them were included in the list of RKN.

At the same time, 13 thousand have already been denied official registration. The agency named three main reasons: users forgot to place a number on their personal page, which was assigned to them after the application was submitted, indicated an incorrect link to the page to be included in the register, as well as misspelled the name of the page.

Photo: IZVESTIYA/Andrei Ershtrem

Since November 1, all owners of pages in social networks and channels in messengers with an audience of more than 10 thousand people are obliged to report data about themselves to Roskomnadzor, recalled lawyer Gleb Stepanov. He noted that after identification, channels and pages will be included in a special list. Individuals, legal entities, sole proprietorships, Russian citizens and foreigners with a confirmed account can apply.

- Bloggers recognized as foreign agents cannot get into the RKN social media register before losing the status of a foreign agent. The procedure is different for such people: they must stop receiving funds from foreign sources or give up political activity, submit an application and documents confirming the absence of foreign agent activity. After that, the Ministry of Justice conducts a check and takes the appropriate decision. Only then can they apply for inclusion in the register of social networks," the lawyer noted.

According to experts, there are now hundreds of thousands of accounts in Russia that fall under the requirements of the RCN, but market representatives do not have the exact figure. The Association of Professional Users of Social Networks and Messengers (APSSM) noted that only one of the social networks in 2022 there were about 300 thousand such accounts.

An expert of the blogger community FSC estimated the total number of such authors at one million, of which YouTube accounts for about half, and the rest - on other large platforms such as Telegram and TikTok. At the same time, the Association of Bloggers and Agencies (ABA) believes that the process of measuring the number of such specialists is problematic, and attempts to estimate them will look like "pitchforks in the water".

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov

"Izvestia" requested official data on the number of ten-thousand-people in the Russian Federation from the Federal Service for Supervision of Natural Resources (RKN), where they recommended to ask administrators or owners of social networks for this information.

In total, 15 resources are present in the RKN social networks register: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, TikTok, Likee, YouTube, Telegram, LiveJournal, Peekaboo, Pinterest, Zen, RuTube, Twitch, Discord and Yappy. On this basis, there may be hundreds of thousands of bloggers in Russia required to be included in the register, believes Vladimir Zykov, head of the APPSSM.

- Currently, the Russian Code of Administrative Offenses does not contain a special article providing for bloggers' liability for failure to fulfill the obligation to register with the RCN. However, sanctions may be applied under Article 14.3 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("Violation of advertising legislation") for placing advertisements without proper registration. It provides for fines from Br2 thousand to Br2.5 thousand for citizens and from Br100 thousand to Br500 thousand for legal entities," said the expert.

How the registration procedure works

The questionnaire on the portal "Gosuservices" is simple, but there are bloggers who are either negligent about filling it out, or inattentive to the procedure and make mistakes, says Vladimir Zykov. They count on the fact that no one will know how many administrators or subscribers they really have, he believes.

At the same time for advertising from January 1, 2025, Influencers, which are not on the list of RKN, will receive not only fines, but also restricted access to the page, said streamer and a member of the blogger association FSC Roman Dorogavtsev. He noted that media persons who have been working in this field for a long time know how to handle documentation and 90% of them have already opened a sole proprietorship. It is enough to run a group without violating laws, including the law on advertising. In this case, there will be no problems with the Russian Federal Tax Service, he added.

Photo: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov

- My first application was rejected. No explanation was given. I checked the address again, added administrators, and after a while the page was approved. I believe they checked for unique content, design, relationship to the topic, presence of advertising and how it is conducted. For these reasons, there could have been massive rejections in communities that were complained about on social media. In general, bloggers have taken a wait-and-see attitude and as if they are not in too much of a hurry to apply," the expert summarized.

Yaroslav Meshalkin, managing partner of Heads'made digital communications agency, agrees that the registration procedure is not difficult.

- Difficulties may arise due to the authors' misunderstanding of where to specify the application number. When I registered my channel, I specified it in the description and in the attached message just in case. Everything went successfully. I advise you to carefully study the recommendations for submitting an application, which were published by the Ministry of Finance, if you follow them, the probability of rejection is minimal," he said.

What bloggers complain about

Bloggers who are not in the registry can not ask for donations, and place advertising on pages without verification and can not distribute posts from pages not from the registry, reminded Gleb Stepanov. At the same time, some bloggers faced the problem of lack of feedback during registration, said Vladimir Zykov.

- I received a refusal for all three personal pages with the wording "Denied service". At the same time, the Telegram page of our St. George Church, which I also applied for inclusion in the register, was accepted without any problems. The sad thing is that I received a dry reply without any details, and it is not even clear what exactly needs to be corrected," said Influencer Pavel Ostrovsky.

Marat Bashirov, a professor at the Higher School of Economics and author of the Telegram channel "Politjoystik," said that he submitted his application on November 12, and after ten days he had not received a reply. He was added to the register on December 5, he added.

Photo: Izvestia/Mitriy Korotayev

There are other reasons for refusal. For example, the audience of the channel is less than 10 thousand subscribers, i.e. at the time of sending the application the channel has 10 thousand subscribers, but at the time of checking the channel their number has decreased, and then the registration will be refused, said Valeria Minina, senior lawyer of the ABA consulting center.

- According to our estimates, 90% of the blogger market in the Russian Federation should take part in the registration procedure. It will not be possible to give a more precise figure," she said.

The Russian Ministry of Finance has prepared answers to the questions that often arise among owners of channels and pages. They will help you avoid mistakes when registering.