Russian Federation is considering blocking access to Reddit

The post is from Roskomnadzor, the Russian organization referred to as the “Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications”.

On Monday, the agency complained that Reddit was stonewalling requests to block a thread about “growing drug-containing plants.” This may prompt Roskomnadzor to put the page on the blacklist, it warned, adding that previously the social network replied to notifications with similar demands “in full.”

The popular link-sharing site has been contacted by Russia’s internet watchdog, Roskomnadzor, and instructed to remove the specific thread.

[Translated from Russian] “Those who have contacts with the administration – ask them to check your mail for letters from Roskomnadzor otherwise due the technical features of a number of operators may block the entire site”, it says.

As well as the message, the watchdog created a Wild West-style “Wanted” poster that featured the Reddit alien in the middle.

Russia, which has a history of threatening to block access to certain sites over seemingly ridiculous reasons, is now considering a ban on reddit.

This decision was made after Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service decided that Reddit content was promoting talks of these substances – in communities that were most likely under subreddits r/trees and r/shrooms.

Wikipedia was targeted in 2013 for including an explanation on “Cannabis Smoking”, and various sites critical of Russia’s involvement in eastern Ukraine have also been blocked, including ones belonging to President Vladimir Putin critics Alexei Navalny and chess champ Garry Kasparov, reports The worldwide Business Times.