Gorelkin Opposes Blocking of Educational Resource Sites

On Monday, January 26, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Anton Gorelkin criticized the idea of pre-trial blocking of sites containing answers to assignments for the OGE (Main State Exam), EGE (Unified State Exam), school olympiads, and ready-made homework assignments (GDR).

In his Telegram channel, the parliamentarian wrote: «Putting school cheat sheets on par with destructive information is too much. Moreover, the practice of »working through« exam assignments from past years has developed as a natural reaction to the system that the ministry has been building for years.»

Gorelkin stated that he does not support this initiative of the Ministry of Education. In his opinion, it is necessary to lighten the school curriculum so that students do not have the desire to cram and copy.

The deputy also expressed confidence that the blocking will not be effective. He suggested that schoolchildren, bypassing the ban, may go to the dark web and encounter fraudsters.

«Rewriting the Federal Law »On Information« to solve education problems (or rather, to create the appearance of solving them) is wrong,» Gorelkin emphasized.

He clarified that pre-trial blocking of sites is a tool to combat socially dangerous information. Using it for other purposes, he said, could lead to absurd consequences, up to banning sites with answers to crosswords.

Currently, Roskomnadzor may receive the right to block resources with ready-made homework assignments and answers to EGE assignments from past years.