A bill has been proposed in the Russian State Duma to block email and online messenger users who share illegal or banned content, purportedly to slow the dissemination of hoax bomb threats, although some are alarmed at implications for Internet freedoms. The government will gather information from citizen complaints rather than from application operators. On a practical level, the move was criticised like this:

"The Telegram blocking experience didn't teach anyone anything," said the source of the Vedomosti newspaper from the Ministry of Communications. Market players believe that it makes no sense to block accounts, because the user can create dozens of new ones.

In December 2017, the State Duma of Russia passed a bill imposing fines for noncompliance with a law signed by President Putin in July 2017, restricting anonymous messaging.