Detentions for publishing in Threads and TikTok have begun in Belarus

In Belarus, control over the content that citizens publish in Threads and TikTok has been strengthened. This was stated by the official representative of the Investigative Committee of the republic.

"At present, there are some facts (of detentions — EADaily), we have not yet announced them, but there are already identified persons who were detained, brought to criminal responsibility for publication," he said.

Sukhodolsky also announced a list of offenses and crimes on social networks for which users can be held accountable.

"This is inciting social hostility, discord, these are deliberately false messages about danger. That is, there are already precedents when people were detained," the representative of the UK emphasized.

At the same time, he noted that there has always been control over content on social networks by law enforcement agencies, and in particular, by the Investigative Committee.

"That is, there was no such thing as, for example, social networks, people do what they want there, in fact, there is no legal assessment of this. There has always been control. Just according to the trends, they drew attention to the fact that specifically in Threads and especially in TikTok, for some reason people thought that no legal norms work there," explained the representative of the Investigative Committee of Belarus.\

According to Sukhodolsky, there were attempts by the authors of certain content to "play" on concepts such as human rights and freedom of speech.

"But everyone has forgotten that human rights end exactly where other people's rights are violated. Actually, this is exactly what happens in Threads," the representative said The Investigative Committee also noted that investigators had repeatedly encountered frankly false information, including about the commission of crimes, about some incidents.

In particular, Sukhodolsky gave a recent example of the fact that in the midst of the entrance campaign, the social network began to "disperse" information that allegedly the body of a crashed student was found near the university building. According to him, the information was not confirmed, and when law enforcement agencies joined in, the authors of the posts began to clean up the information.

"We noticed the same thing with regard to various kinds of commentators, accounts that spread information. As soon as they see that they have been noticed by law enforcement agencies, it can be anything — watching stories on TikTok, or the Investigative Committee likes you, the account is immediately deleted," he said.

Recall that in Belarus there is no ban on social networks or instant messengers. However, law enforcement agencies carefully monitor the content published in the country.