“Mother Russia” is certainly living up to its nickname of late. About a nine months ago Russian lawmakers first introduced their controversial “blacklist law,” which gives authorities the power to block access to websites that are deemed to promote drug use, suicide and porn (for the kids, of course). Oddly enough, that same law was later used to silence oponents of the government who dared to criticize it following the presidential elections earlier this year, but of course that was surely just a coincidence.

Now, Russian politicos have their overprotective hats on once again, and want to extend the powers of this law so they can ban all forms of swearing on the interweb. The law is of course, all about the children, who apparently need protecting from such foul verbal discourse:

As Pravda reports:

“State Duma Deputy Yelena Mizulina intends to make further amendments to the Law “On the Protection of Children.” The chairwoman of the Committee on Family, Women and Children put forward a suggestion to punish people for using dirty language in social networks.

According to politician, the pages full of posts and messages containing swear words, will have to be blocked within 24 hours, if harmful information is not deleted. This should apply to pages on social networks, websites, and various forums.”

So in a nutshell, Russia wants to make it illegal to use explicit language anywhere online. If websites fail to remove offensive language quickly, the website itself will be removed instead.

But surely this is crazy, right? Who in their right mind would consider filthy words to be on the same level as kiddy porn and guides on how to kill yourself?

Apparently, Mizulina does. In an interview with Izvestia, she declares that the nasty sludge that’s commonly posted in the comments sections of sites like YouTube and Reddit is helping to convince kids that such language is acceptable:

“We receive very many complaints from parents on the excessive amount of abusive language in Internet publications and social networks visited by children.”

Sadly, Sergei Smirnov, chairman of Moscow’s Regional Bar Association, also thinks the proposal is a wonderful idea:

“Obscene language offends both children and adults. A ban on its use is not an infringement of human rights. This is a direction towards a civilized lifestyle. If we do not use foul language in real life, then why do we use it on the Internet?”

So apparently, because no one in Russia ever swears offline, it makes sense that they should ban the practice online. Right…

Meanwhile, the fact that this law, if passed, would also give the Russian government a license to block just about every website it disagrees with, is of course just a coincidence.