Sovereign Internet Law
{{Short description|2019 amendments to Russian Internet legislation}}
{{Expand Russian|Закон о «суверенном интернете»|date=March 2021}}
The Sovereign Internet Law ({{langx|ru|Закон о «суверенном интернете»}}) is the informal name for a set of 2019 amendments to existing Russian legislation that mandate Internet surveillance and grants the Russian government powers to partition Russia from the rest of the Internet, including the creation of a national fork of the Domain Name System.{{Cite web|last=Schulze|first=Elizabeth|date=2019-11-01|title=Russia just brought in a law to try to disconnect its internet from the rest of the world|url=https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/01/russia-controversial-sovereign-internet-law-goes-into-force.html|access-date=2021-02-28|website=CNBC|language=en}}{{Cite web|date=2020-06-18|title=Russia: Growing Internet Isolation, Control, Censorship|url=https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/06/18/russia-growing-internet-isolation-control-censorship|access-date=2021-02-28|website=Human Rights Watch|language=en}}{{Cite web|last=Epifanova|first=Alena|date=January 16, 2020|title=Deciphering Russia's "Sovereign Internet Law"|url=https://dgap.org/en/research/publications/deciphering-russias-sovereign-internet-law|website=DGAP}}{{Cite news|date=2019-11-01|title=Russia internet: Law introducing new controls comes into force|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50259597|access-date=2021-02-28}}{{Cite web|title=On the Federal Law "On Amendments to the Federal Law" On Communications "and the Federal Law" On Information, Information Technologies and the Protection of Information"|url=http://council.gov.ru/activity/documents/104263/|website=Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation|date=22 April 2019 }}{{Cite web|title=Law on "Sovereign Internet" adopted|url=http://duma.gov.ru/news/44551/|website=The State Duma|date=16 April 2019 }}
In a statement released by the State Legal Department on March 13, 2019, the federal law was aimed at "suppressing the dissemination of unreliable socially significant information under the guise of reliable messages that creates a threat of harm to the life and (or) health of citizens, property, a threat of massive disruption of public order and (or) public safety, or a threat of interfering with the functioning or termination of the functioning of facilities life support, transport or social infrastructure, credit institutions, energy facilities, industry and communications."{{Cite web|title=Changes have been made to the law on information, information technology and information protection|url=http://kremlin.ru/acts/news/60083|website=Kremlin|date=18 March 2019 }}
The system was tested on 6 July 2023,{{cite web | url=https://www.malaysiasun.com/news/273889898/russia-briefly-turned-off-international-internet-rbk | title=Russia briefly turned off international internet RBK }} and possibly tested again on February 27, 2024.{{Cite web |title=Institute for the Study of War |url=http://dev-isw.bivings.com/ |access-date=2024-03-01 |website=Institute for the Study of War |language=en}} On December 10, 2024, the system got tested for a whole day in the Chechnya region. {{Cite web|title=Russia Tests Cutting Off Access to Global Web, and VPNs Can't Get Around It|url=https://www.pcmag.com/news/russia-tests-cutting-off-access-to-global-web-and-vpns-cant-get-around|website= PC Mag|language=en}}