Introduction. Social networks as a relatively new form of Internet communication are actively used to create and exchange content, disseminate socially significant information, conduct business, search for work, education, create groups of like-minded people and organize their activities. At the same time, the practice of recent years has shown that the threats of using social networks for illegal purposes have also significantly increased – for example, to disseminate false or offensive information, involve users in committing criminal acts, and organize public unrest. Theoretical analysis. The following problems of legal regulation of activities in social networks have been established: theoretical lack of elaboration of many issues; the conditionality of user behavior by the properties inherent in social networks; the presence of conflicts between the rules established by the owners of social networks and the norms of the laws of individual states; 4) the complexity of regulating the behavior of a virtual personality; the need to take into account the regulatory potential of information technology. Empirical analysis. The study examines international acts that establish the main directions of interstate and national policy in the field of regulation of social networks. The analysis of the Federal Law No. 530-FZ dated December 30, 2020, which establishes the features of the dissemination of information on social networks in particular, the obligations of the owner of the social network, aimed at preventing the dissemination of illegal information. The user agreements of the most famous social networks VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are investigated and their comparative analysis with legislative norms is carried out. Results. Firstly, the analysis of the user agreements of the most famous social networks shows that their owners have already developed norms prohibiting the dissemination of illegal and unethical content, including materials containing calls to commit terrorist activities or justifying terrorism, extremism, pornographic, defamatory or discriminatory. At the same time, the terminological and content definitions of such information differ. Secondly, legislative innovations will lead to greater transparency in the relationship between the owners of social networks and users. Thirdly, the adoption of a law regulating the features of the dissemination of information in social networks testifies to the fact that the Russian Federation, like other countries, is taking measures to ensure state sovereignty in the information sphere.