Reddit has always been a controversial medium and its enemies are not just concerned mothers and teachers anymore. The Kremlin declares war against Reddit and, after Facebook, Twitter and Google, Russian people are in the middle of another Internet scandal.
OK, WHAT HAPPENED?
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s censorship agency which was created for children’s protection from “information harmful to their health and development”, as the Russian law points out, has ordered the whole country’s Internet providers to prevent access to a specific Reddit post. As the Russian drug agency concluded, this Reddit post concealed sensitive, drug-related information.
This thread appears to provide advice on growing psychedelic mushrooms and it was published two years ago. Under the title “Minimal and Reliable Methods for Growing Psilocybe [Mushrooms],” the post was not that popular and there were no upvotes or comments. Officials posted on VKontakte, the Russian Facebook, a poster which featured Reddit’s mascot being “Wanted”.
Russia asked the internet providers to block the post because they received no answer from Reddit when they asked them to delete the post. The fact that Reddit uses secure browsing technology is going to lead many ISPs to block the whole website in order to obey their government’s rules.
YES, WE KNOW WHO DID IT!
The author of the post is the user, “rsocfan”, and, on Wednesday, he claimed responsibility in Reddit’s section, “Today I F****d Up”. However, he refused to delete the post because he believes that it’s a way to highlight Russia’s clampdown on free speech. Of course, Reddit is not the first (or the second) American internet company that Russia decided to fight. Last year, Vladimir Putin demanded from Facebook, Twitter and Google to conform to Russia’s Internet legislation.
SO, CAN RUSSIANS ACCESS REDDIT?
The ban is not complete yet or the ISPs have figured out how to limit access to the specific post since some users from Russia claim that they are still able to access the website. Reddit is one of the oldest and biggest online communities worldwide with more than 30 million users. Its popularity in Russia has made the country’s users comment that they are going to use a variety of ways to mask their location, in order to remain on Reddit.
