“Actions taken by the administrators of the Russian segment of the Internet encyclopaedia to move the article in question to a new URL did not restrict access to the information declared illegal by courts”, Roskomnadzor, the government agency, said in a statement on its website. “[It] contains forbidden information about narcotic substances”. Wikipedia’s policy of not removing individual articles could mean that Russia’s censors have no alternative but to block the site in its entirety.
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This is a particularly baffling case, however.
Roskomnadzor’s ruling could affect Wikipedia as a whole and not just the page that contained the controversial article, and therefore Wikipedia would appeal the decision to pull the page, said Vladimir Medeiko, the head of Wikipedia RU, Tass reported.
“We tried to call them but were told that the press officer is on vacation and no-one else is authorised to talk to us”. Earlier this month, the officials briefly banned Reddit over a thread containing information about psychedelic mushrooms, though the ban was lifted once Reddit complied with the censorship and removed the post.
“The Russian Wikipedia community has held active discussions regarding the notice and article”.
The entire ordeal between the user-generated site and Russian media watch dog Roskomnadzor began in a remote southern village called Chyorny Yar, where a prosecutor demanded that the Russian-language Wikipedia entry about charas be deleted from the web.
Editors have made significant changes to the article, adding further information and citations to reliable sources, bringing it in line with Wikipedia’s standards for neutrality and reliability.
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Wikipedia’s Russian-language site was still available to Russian users as of 1800 GMT on Monday.
