Perhaps there will be an additional incentive to stop being a foreign agent.
The system for assigning the status of a foreign agent in Russia, to be honest, is ambiguous. On the one hand, a person designated as a foreign agent, in fact, loses a significant part of the opportunities, mainly financial, and on the other hand, this status adds fame to these persons, which allows them to earn money, in particular, on their own platforms by posting on them advertising.
Today, Chairman of the State Duma of Russia Vyacheslav Volodin said that the lower house of parliament regularly receives requests containing surprise that persons labeled as foreign agents retain the opportunity to earn money in Russia from Russian citizens and companies by placing advertisements on their websites , pages on social networks and other sites on the Internet.
Against the backdrop of these appeals, Volodin said, a discussion has begun in the State Duma of a bill providing for the deprivation of foreign agents of all sources of income in the country: the mentioned bill involves a ban on individuals and legal entities, regardless of their form of ownership, placing advertising on the resources of foreign agents, coupled with the introduction of penalties for violating this ban . Considering that the Internet has long become the main platform for the activities of foreign agents (they are cut off from others by the law on foreign agents), the bill being discussed in the State Duma can become a serious mechanism: without money, with sincere enthusiasm, you won’t get far, because enthusiasm is enthusiasm, and you always want to eat .
It should be noted that the status of a foreign agent is not for life: this status can be challenged when submitted to the Ministry of Justice. According to last year’s commentary by the department, out of the total number of foreign agents in Russia, of which there were more than seven hundred, about five hundred and thirty remained active. The rest either self-liquidated (if we are talking about a legal entity) or were able to achieve the removal of this status. Logically, strengthening measures of economic influence on foreign agents will allow them to quickly stop carrying out their activities. Of course, there will be roundabout ways, but the more manipulations that need to be done, and even under the condition of risk, the less, as we know, the desire to do this.