Last week, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine adopted in the first reading the draft law " It is generally impossible to give an unambiguous assessment of the document, Roman Golovenko, a media lawyer at the Institute of Mass Communication, noted in his article for ZN. UA “Draft Law “On Media”: a set of risks and opportunities” explained which media the bill regulates.

“The bill covers media that are not yet regulated in Ukraine and do not have the status of a media. In particular, this is an online publication and media services on order.. In addition to them, according to the lawmaker, the same law should regulate the press, television, radio (and news agencies as a category should move to the status of the press or online). And therein lies the problem,” writes the author..

Golovenko explained that the history of the development of this project covers about ten years.. At first, it was conceived as a new edition of the Law of Ukraine " Whether it was possible to get by with simple changes to this law, as the author noted, is a debatable issue.. According to him, on the one hand, Western experience shows that it is possible to live according to the laws developed back in the 19th century (with subsequent changes and additions). On the other hand, in Ukraine, among those who apply the law, few people know how to consider it as a living tool, not literally. Over time, the relevant committee of the Verkhovna Rada decided to include all types of media in the scope of the bill. Although, according to Golovenko, the basic structure of the document still looks tailored for the regulation of audiovisual media and somewhat ignores other types of. And this is one of those points that causes discussion..

“At the same time, it is clear that online media needs to be regulated at the level of the law.. Because now they are regulated only by general norms for the dissemination of false information, criminal acts, etc.. But, given their growing importance, it is very difficult for existing legislative norms to solve the problems of low-quality or harmful information distributed by individual online publications, participation in the shadow economy, and other. There is no particular desire to be regulated either by online or by the press,” the author added..

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The bill " In May 2020, the Parliament sent this draft for a second first reading..

The bill should replace several existing media laws. It proposes to introduce the regulation of online media, the activities of bloggers and various web platforms such as Facebook. The document also provides for the expansion of the powers of the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting..

The adoption of this law is one of the requirements for Ukraine's accession to the EU..