Russia Threatens to Ban Reddit

First it was gay emojis and memes. Now mother Russia is threatening to ban the whole of reddit, unless the site’s administrators start banning marijuana-growing tutorials.

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision for Telecom, Information Technologies, and Mass Communications, posted to social networking site VKontakte that it had been in touch with reddit’s administrators, asking them to take down posts related to growing cannabis, in line with a request from the Federal Drug Control Service of Russia. Since reddit has not responded to the request, Roskomnadzor is “preparing” to add the site to its ever-growing list of prohibited sites in Russia.

“If anyone has contacts with the reddit administration, ask them to check their email for letters from Roskomnadzor, otherwise, due to technological features, many operators may block the whole site,” the VKontakte post reads.

Roskomnadzor’s list of banned sites is quite the eclectic collection, ranging from Internet Wayback Machine, the official Jehovah’s Witness site, and a Facebook group supporting Russian state critic Alexey Navalny. The blacklist is designed to “protect” the Russian people from sites and pages that contain child pornography, extremist content, content subject to a gag order, or materials that advocate drugs or suicide. At some point or another during its lifespan, reddit has ticked every box.

Thank you Vocativ for providing us with this information.