MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/. Anonymous news channels on social networks have become an intimidating weapon and instrument of aggressive influence on Russia, said Yevgeny Poddubny, one of the top five on the United Russia federal list of candidates for the State Duma elections, military correspondent, Deputy General Director of VGTRK and Hero of Russia.

"The modern system often deprives us of personal responsibility for the accuracy of information. Because there are a lot of anonymous channels, a lot of channels whose authorship cannot be verified. At the dawn of the development of the Internet, this was perceived as a kind of freedom, freedom of speech. But now it has turned into a real formidable weapon against us and into a tool for quite aggressive informational influence on our society in the face of confrontation," he said at the Territory of Meanings forum in Senezh.

Poddubny said that in traditional media, correspondents are personally responsible for each published material.

"Personal responsibility can be different, ranging from reputational to criminal. For example, in traditional mass media, it's not for nothing that a person always hears the last name after the information process ends. This is personal responsibility at various levels," he said.

Poddubny spoke at the plenary session "Political leaders of modern times: strategic choices and solutions," which was also attended by Commissioner for Human Rights Yana Lantratova, Senator Igor Kastyukevich and Director of the Russian Patriotic Center (Rospatriotcenter) of the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh) Yelena Belikova.