The media service providers that will broadcast qualified content as disinformation or information that affects information security face fines of up to 100,000 lei. If the same violation is committed again, the provider will be deprived of the right to broadcast for a particular period of time, while the websites that will misinform and spread fake news will be blocked by the Security and Intelligence Service. This is provided in a bill that was discussed in Parliament for almost three hours and was given a first reading following the break announced after BCS MPs blocked the legislature’s rostrum, IPN reports.

The bill sponsors, PAS MPs, said disinformation and false information continue to be a challenge to the national information security sphere. The Security and Intelligence Service will be empowered to design and implement a new system of measures aimed at discovering, preventing and counteracting actions that pose threats to information security.

The online content providers in Moldova will be obliged, on the instruction of SIS, to immediately interrupt, by informing the public, the transmission in an electronic communication network if they misinform by such content.

The legal entities and private individuals that have websites are obliged to place contact information in visible places. In the absence of these, the websites can be blocked.

After the debates that lasted for almost three hours, the Communist and Socialist MPs blocked the rostrum. Speaker Igor Grosu announced a pause. When the sitting was resumed, PAS MP Oazu Nantoi in his speech said the goal of the bill is to protect the people, society and the state, not to ban something. “We cannot allow disinformation and war propaganda, which are brain control weapons, to be used against the citizens of the Republic of Moldova,” he stated.

The parliamentary majority adopted the bill in the first reading.