The members of the upper house of the Kazakh Parliament made a number of amendments to the draft law ‘On Cyberbullying’, returning it back to the Mazhilis for revision. In particular, the senators disagreed with some of the norms that were previously approved by the Mazhilis members. For example, that the Ministry of Information and Social Development may, at its discretion, restrict or block social media and messengers. According to the Senate members, only the information that is recognized as cyberbullying in relation to a child should be deleted. And they suggested that it should not be a separate state body to determine whether or not a particular case is indeed cyberbullying against children, but a specially created group of experts. It should include lawyers, psychologists, linguists and children's rights advocates. In total, the senators made six amendments to the document. Senator Beibit Issabayev spoke about them in more detail.
“The version of the bill approved by the Mazhilis provided for the removal of all content that contradicts the law of Kazakhstan, while in our version it is proposed to delete or remove only the content that has clear signs of cyberbullying of children. A special expert council will have to conclude that it was indeed a fact of cyberbullying against children. In this case, the content must be deleted within 24 hours after the official representative of the Internet resources receives a notification from the authorized body,” said Beibit Issabayev, Member of Senate, the Upper House of the Kazakh Parliament.
Translation by Assem Zhanmukhanova
Editing by Saule Mukhamejanova
