A bevy of public places in Russia will soon enjoy safe internet via free Wi-Fi services courtesy of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is part of the church's effort to get with the times especially on the internet and Wi-Fi technology where much of day to day life revolves. The church's Wi-Fi services will feature special protective and safe internet measures that will ensure the free Wi-Fi will remain clean for the public.
As part of the safe internet policy particular contents, which offer porn, grody tabloid and propaganda on homosexuality and dangerous sects, will not be accessible via these Wi-Fi services. The safe internet initiative via free Wi-Fi services has the support of the state and will largely be available in public places near churches and those popular with the young.
Russian Orthodox Church's deputy department head for societal relations and Russian Inter-religious Council member, Roman Bagdasarov, clarifies: "We're not suggesting that the Orthodox internet will only have the Patriarch's preaches and Christian websites. It will have lots of things, including normal movies, both Russian and foreign, that impart traditional values and traditional morals, patriotism and protection of family and children."
"And I would like to add that we are not restricting anyone's freedoms, those who don't want to use the Orthodox Christian internet may simply not use it."
Bagdasarov spoke of safe internet projects in Russia with automatic content filtering according to the church's teachings. As an example, filtering will be similar to the Gospel-aligned rublev.com search engine where input of the keyword "murder" will yield "Thou shalt not kill" from the 10 commandments and "porn" or "sex" will display the text "Thou shalt not commit adultery".
Other major religions expressed their support to this goal of safe internet. The Council of Russia's Muftis relayed that similar safe internet projects on special content-filtering are also in the works for the Muslim public.
In 2014, the region of Kostroma's 29 internet service providers in collaboration with the group League of Safe Internet amended user agreements to reflect a safe internet white list access for all subscribers of about 500,000 websites that have been pre-approved by the League's experts. While subscribers are not limited to the white list, those who opt for a scope outside the list are required a waiver that assumes responsibility for any risk incurred from their Internet activities.
