Today Redditors in Russia may have a difficult time connecting to Reddit, as it has been banned by the Roskomnadzor (RKN), the Russian agency that describes itself as a "Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media." The reason for the blanket ban? A page on how to grow shrooms.
Initially the block was added by a single ISP called Seven Sky, but the RKN has now ordered all ISPs to follow suit. Before ordering the ban, the ISP attempted to contact Reddit to get the page (which was posted two years ago) pulled but after failing to get it removed, it would seem that the Russian authorities have decided to take rather drastic measures.
In response to a topic on the ban posted earlier today, a Redditor pointed out the reason:
Actually, because of [a single post](www.reddit.com/r/rudrugs/comments/1derq9/) in /r/rudrugs. And providers should block only that page, although nobody complained loudly enough (yet) if they get lazy and block entire site.
The author of the page that prompted the ban responded in a separate post on Reddit, detailing how sites are banned without court ruling, and pointed out that the agency is unable to ban sites if they use https, which is kind of comical since Reddit switched to https a couple of months ago.
He went on to say that he has no intention of removing the post in question:
Will I remove this post? No. I also think that Reddit administration needs to do nothing. This is important issue on freedom of speech, and only RKN want to violate it.
It's a little worrying that strong-arm tactics like this will happen, but it would also seem that if you reside in Russia, use a HTTPS Everywhere extension, or you already connect to Reddit via https, you probably haven't noticed anything at all.
Via Reddit
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