Russian parliament is considering legislation to force bloggers whose webpages get 10,000 views a day to get official journalist accreditation from the government, Russian press reports.

      The legislation is part of a package of proposed amendments to the laws and regulations that cover mass media and the Internet, including the blogosphere, the Izvestia daily said.

      If the bloggers are accredited as journalists, they will be subject to the same restrictions imposed on the media by law, the newspaper said, adding that a similar requirement had already been introduced in Israel.

      Many bloggers and media experts are very sceptical about that initiative. The say that such measures can put finish to the Russian Internet as a decentralized network and the only source of receiving information from different points of view. Moreover, most popular websites for blogging or social interacting, such as LiveJournal, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, are legally and physically located in the United States. So it will be not so easy for Russian officials to tackle the technical side of this and require bloggers on these websites to register as journalists.

      Izvestia newspaper reported that the amendments would be discussed by an expert council of the lower house of parliament’s information technology committee together with high-profile bloggers.