Since Russian President Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012, Russia has passed legislation banning sites that contain child pornography, drug-related or militant material, or which advocate suicide. On Monday, a Russian government agency ordered internet providers to block access to a page on the Russian-language version of Wikipedia for containing information on a type of cannabis, according to The Huffington Post.
Wikipedia uses a protected protocol that states providers cannot block separate pages on the same site. Which means the move could lead to the Russian-language version of Wikipedia becoming totally inaccessible, the organization that supports the website warned.
On Thursday, a Russian court in the southwest Astrakhan Region urged Roskomnadzor to blacklist Wikipedia, should it refuse to delete an article describing methods of preparing narcotics.
"Roscomnadzor has ordered providers to block a page on the Russian Wikipedia website, which contains information on narcotics," the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications said in a statement, according to Sputnik News.
Vladimir Medeyko, the director of Wikimedia.ru, a voluntary group controlling Wikipedia's operations in Russia, said Wikipedia would appeal against the decision of Roscomnadzor. According to him, the whole resource's operation will be affected by the watchdog's order.
Russia has threatened to ban Wikipedia in its entirety if the online encyclopedia refuses to delete an entry about charas, a hashish form of cannabis. The potential ban follows a brief block of Reddit earlier this month after certain pages of the social news site were deemed to be promoting use of banned substances, according to Yahoo! News.
"In the event that Wikipedia refuses to comply with the court's ruling, Roskomnadzor will block the webpage on Russian territory using the registry of illegal information," Roskomnadzor stated. "In this case, insofar as Wikipedia has decided to function on the basis of https, which doesn't allow restricting access to individual pages on its site, the entire website would be blocked."
