14 ms·
Russia bans Reddit
- AustinMunday 11y agoPeople are going to find a way to do/make drugs. If it is not reddit it will be somewhere else. I think the 'drugs are bad' is a ploy to get an american company out of Russia
- stephengillie 11y agoThat's quite a broad "ban-hammer" they're using to swat this fly. I wonder how many Russians use Reddit. When Googling for that info, I only found links to /r/russia and news articles about "Russia threatening to block Reddit about Marijuana tips" which obviously predate the blurb in this thread. Does anyone have some statistics?
- greggarious 11y agoReddit uses HTTPS so there's no way to tell which individual subreddit a user is visiting.
- stephengillie 11y agoI'm sure Reddit has a way of telling. :) I don't know if they make their stats public.
- mullen 11y agoIf they think a recipe for growing mushrooms is bad, then they should not look at the rest of the site.
- cryoshon 11y agoThis is a long shot, but my hunch is that there's probably something political going on here. Reddit is typically the target of large scale pro-Russian propaganda shilling/submissions, and, as far as I know, not well-used by Russians. With that in mind, Russia isn't actually that serious about its "war on drugs"-- it's probable that this was just a cover story.
- gukov 11y agoIt's probably due to /r/UkrainianConflict/
- Uhhrrr 11y agoI followed that sub closely in its early days (I was worried about World War III) and I can see why Russia wouldn't like it. Pro-Russian propaganda gets called out pretty quickly. Pro-Western propaganda gets called out, too, but not as much.
- sgfc 11y agoIt spilled over into /u/MilitaryPorn as well. We had at least four guys from over there battling it out hard for a while with both posts and comments.
- bgilroy26 11y agoThe discussion over there https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/3gr44w/russia_bans_reddit/ https://www.reddit.com/r/UkrainianConflict/comments/3gr44w/r...
- exelius 11y agoIt's all about consolidating control of the media in the hands of the Russian state. Reddit is uncontrollable, so they block it. Putin is trying to roll back Russia to the 'glory days' of communism when Russia was powerful enough to project its influence far outside its borders. I don't really think that type of state control is possible anymore -- it's just too easy to spread information around the world these days. Russia's economy is also not strong enough to make the kinds of promises (aka economic aid) that are required to gain that kind of influence in today's world. But along those lines, I would expect to see Russia block any other site that relies on user-submitted content. It's really hard to construct a narrative if everyone outside of Russia is saying something different.
- SirFatty 11y agoAnd they'll be better for it (the Russians)...
- Retra 11y agoThat is really judging a book by its cover.
- rawTruthHurts 11y agoNo, it's not.
- vetinari 11y agoYeah, my first thought was, that the productivity in Russia is going to increase. Or they will have to find a new site to waste their time on ;)
- jedberg 11y ago> On August 10, Russian censors complained that they were unable to contact Reddit's administrators I'm going to guess this is either totally false, or if they did reach out to reddit, they didn't make it at all clear they were a legitimate Russian government organization.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- differentView 11y agoI wonder how often emails sent from a Russian address is falsely filtered to the spam folder.
- sgfc 11y agoFYI, this was also [reported in the Guardian today](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/12/russian-government-threatens-block-reddit-cannabis-thread http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/12/russian-go...)
- nadams 11y ago> I'm going to guess this is either totally false I tried to contact Reddit administration once - no response. They probably either ignore uninteresting emails (read: any email except where people want to give them money) - or it was labeled as spam and went into the bitbucket. After the latest reddit drama - this isn't surprising. When you fire someone who handles major publicity without telling anyone (I'm sure people knew and knew why - but didn't want to say anything) - there is definitely a communication problem in your company. And this is not a "sorry we will work for better communication in the future" issue - it's a problem where they need to identify the problem and fix it immediately.
- Guvante 11y agoPublicly accessible email addresses are nearly impossible to manage. Reddit has 20 million unique visitors per month. If in a given month 1% of users send an email in a month, they are receiving an email an average of once every 13 seconds. Assuming you can read an email every second that is still three full time employees just reading email to keep up.
- ck2 11y agoI have a better question - how did they ban it? Is all internet traffic in Russia portal-ed like it is in China? Imagine the US government trying to block an overseas website, without physically taking the server they would have little ability to do so, there are too many alternate routes.
- cpmsmith 11y agoSounds from the article like they have ISPs do the blocking. >many Russian Internet providers (perhaps 30 percent, according to the government) will block the website in its entirety
- r721 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia#Blacklist_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Russia#...
- iamcurious 11y agoAnd so, the balkanization of the internet continues.
- blumkvist 11y agoThis is like the first time I've seen this term used correctly. I'm from the balkans btw.
- Devid2014 11y agoSounds just like "Russia bans Internet". Because Reddit is just a part of Internet where you can find almost anything. What is the next step to ban Wikipedia ?
- maximsch2 11y ago"A list of Wikipedia pages banned by Roscomnadzor" (link in Russian): https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%8F:%D0%A1%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D1%8B_%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF%D0%B5%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%B8,_%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0%B2_%D0%95%D0%B4%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9_%D1%80%D0%B5%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D1%80_%D0%B7%D0%B0%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%89%D1%91%D0%BD%D0%BD%D1%8B%D1%85_%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%B9%D1%82%D0%BE%D0%B2 https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B8%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BF...
- r721 11y agoHere's the unofficial mirror of a banned sites list: https://github.com/zapret-info/z-i https://github.com/zapret-info/z-i The commit with the reddit url: https://github.com/zapret-info/z-i/commit/3685d96a7e7bce2e3bd2c54c0bf6a33933b39b4b https://github.com/zapret-info/z-i/commit/3685d96a7e7bce2e3b... >198.41.208.137 | 198.41.208.138 | 198.41.208.139 | 198.41.208.140 | 198.41.208.141 | 198.41.208.142 | 198.41.208.143 | 198.41.209.136 | 198.41.209.137 | 198.41.209.138 | 198.41.209.139 | 198.41.209.140 | 198.41.209.141 | 198.41.209.142 | 198.41.209.143;www.reddit.com;http://www.reddit.com/r/rudrugs/comments/1derq9/; http://www.reddit.com/r/rudrugs/comments/1derq9/;
- minivan 11y agoInterestingly, the post is 2 years old, has one single comment by the OP. The user didn't have any other contributions to Reddit other than that. The sub itself was created by the same user two years ago and had no activity.
- josu 11y agoAnd he just posted why: >In Russia, there is a law which allow Roskomnadzor, Russian censorship agency, to block any website without court rulling. Two years ago I tested how RKN react to abuse on popular websites/crazy abuses. On of that websites was Reddit. >One thing I learned is that RKN doesn't want to block popular websites. They respond me that this content is illegal and they blocked it, but they weren't. It was on 05/21/2013. On 10st Aug 2015 they posted a call to help them contact Reddit administration to official VK page. Funny thing, but they called Psilocybe a plant. Several hours ago they reported that Reddit is blocked in Russia. Seems like things changed. >How Reddit is blocked? Fully. As Reddit switched to HTTPS, there is no way to block special page. >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. >BTW, this post is a guide for indoor growing Psilocybe mushrooms in Russian. I'm not sure if any people saw this before blocking, but if you are here and you can read Russian, now you know to grow some shrooms, thanks to RKN. https://www.reddit.com/r/rudrugs/comments/3grm4d/tfw_you_are_the_reason_to_block_reddit_in_russia/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rudrugs/comments/3grm4d/tfw_you_are...
- cpmsmith 11y ago>"We assume that the website is simply understaffed during the summer holidays[...]" officials said publicly. That definitely smells like they didn't try too hard to get in contact.
- Supersaiyan_IV 11y agoThey issued the ban notice shortly after this news story became popular: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3gl0pg/missile_parts_at_mh17_crash_site/ https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/3gl0pg/missile_p... I'm not trying to ring any bells. We all know what agendas are in action here anyway.
- kushti 11y agoThe link you've provided works fine from Russia(Yota provider, the big one). Try a proxy with a Russian IP by yourself. So you're wrong
- Supersaiyan_IV 11y agoSeven Sky ISP has banned reddit. So, I guess we're both right. https://i.imgur.com/U8Vvkhl.png https://i.imgur.com/U8Vvkhl.png
- codeshaman 11y ago[from TFA]: The offending content was a page titled, "Minimal and Reliable Methods for Growing Psilocybe Mushrooms." It's no suprise that they would ban the whole of Reddit rather then let people grow and eat psychedelic mushrooms. It's just a testament to how dangerous they think this is for their current regime. Drugs, especially psychedelics, are antidotes for brainwashing and they know it and won't allow it. I strongly believe that if more people took psychedelics in Russia, the regime would melt away and young people would start inventing crazy cool stuff and organizing Burning Man's instead of listening to state propaganda and preparing for WW3. Theories aside, I'm really sorry for the people in Russia who are affected by the decisions of these zombie officials and each time I see something like this, I feel a greater need for a decentralized web which would be impossible (or extremely difficult) to block. (If you're working on something like a decentralized/p2p web/Internet/content distribution platform), let me know, I'd love to join you.
- maxxxxx 11y agoSomehow I doubt that in Russia young people "listen to state propaganda and prepare WW3". If you believe this you are probably victim of other state propaganda.
- sandworm101 11y agoRussia still does conscription. So all, well at least all MALE young people, do listen to propaganda and prepare for WW3. They do not have a choice.
- maxxxxx 11y agoI was in a conscripted army too. Technically I was preparing for WW3 but in reality we drank a lot of beer and waited to get out again. We certainly didn't think about fighting a war. I don't think Russian soldiers think differently.
- ild 11y agoRussian Army is like American Prison. Violence, a lot of violence.
- kushti 11y agoReddit works fine for me(Russia/Yota provider), what is the target url? Everything I can find for (Minimal and Reliable Methods for Growing Psilocybe site:reddit.com) works for me as well, but can't find that exact title in search engines. Interesting, how bureaucrats finding such stuff? :)
- HillRat 11y agoAh, you know how it goes; generally, it either comes from a report filed to Roskomnadzor by a "concerned patriotic citizen" (like famed private citizen Vitaly Milonov), or it's a case of, "Gosh, it sure would be terrible if we found something here that would force us to ban this site" (the same way that the FSNP would hate for there to be something you forgot to pay taxes on, citizen of questionable patriotic status). I figure the latter in this case.
- kushti 11y agoAre you working there(Roskomnadzor)? What is FSNP?
- HillRat 11y agoWhat is FSNP? Old tax police, I forgot that they split it between GUEBiPK at MVD and SEB at FSB years ago (and, I guess, more recently SK picked up some of that portfolio). Can't keep track of all the different security organs these days.... Nevertheless, you think I'd have gotten that right, since I just read a piece about Sugrobov and Kolesnikov's prosecution.
- kushti 11y agoSorry, I've totally lost the point totally, especially about that: "FSNP would hate for there to be something you forgot to pay taxes on, citizen of questionable patriotic status". Never heard about "questionable patriotic status" in my practice / from other people. And how that's linked with tax police? For sure, tax police will be disappointed in case of a missed payment, that's how it works (everywhere).
- honest_joe 11y agoPutin's sick regime can start WW3. I hope my country won't be invaded by these idiots again..even when we share common culture and the language. Oh god where we could have been without 50years of russian influence and propaganda. I am really sad that american forces did not advance and did not drag us out of USSR's sphere of influence.
- curiousjorge 11y agotragic, we won't be seeing russian reddit bots anymore. advertisers probably don't get a lot of russian customers so I fail to see reddit being impacted.
- gtirloni 11y agoI wouldn't read too much between the lines. There are countless examples of a judge somewhere not getting his/her request for a single page take-down and then ordering whole websites to be blocked.
- hendry 11y agoYou can't block a HTTPS site based on path http://dabase.com/blog/Centralisation_censorship_side_effect/ http://dabase.com/blog/Centralisation_censorship_side_effect...
- ajuc 11y ago"Russia" is also killing opposition politicians and independent journalists, sponsoring extremist parties in EU, and invading neighboring countries. Censoring reddit isn't really significant to be honest.
- logicallee 11y agoThis is kind of besides the point, but do you have any idea what banning reddit would do to America's GDP?
- jotm 11y agoYeah, banning Reddit, Imgur, Twitter, Instagram, Gawker Media, Facebook and Hacker News would probably solve the national debt problem AND world hunger in a few months :-D
- mikkom 11y agoI really, really hope the official russian government trolls can't access it either.
- wonkaWonka 11y agoAgreeing to serve an Error 451[1] page to Russian IP addresses, for the offending content in question only, would be a cute resolution to all this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_451 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_451
- xentronium 11y agoJFYI, LiveJournal, Github and many other sites are already doing this. Edit: Slight correction, Github responds with HTTP 200 and a "banned by your government" stub, lj.rossia.org does the same (shows the 451 code in their message though) and livejournal uses 404 code for the "banned by your government" stub. I figure it's because it's not yet in the http standard or something.
- r721 11y agoIt looks like reddit implemented this already: >403 Forbidden >Request forbidden by administrative rules. (when trying to open blacklisted url)
- xentronium 11y ago"The worse the better": I'd rather government banned whole internet except kremlin.ru and everyone and their dog learned how to use proxies and vpns. Other than that, as I noted in the other comment thread, I wouldn't read too much into this event. Roskomnadzor is a ridiculously stupid organization, I doubt they even knew reddit is a Big Deal in the West.
- mirimir 11y agoI gather that VPN services are already quite popular in Russia.
- sexbomb 11y agoПожалуйста. As if "Russia" (read: Putin) could even begin to care about his proud, loyal fellow citizens of the Motherland figuring out how to grow their own weed. (Beyond the extent to which it might cut into his Chechen pals' profit channels, that is). /r/UkraineConflict and the various LGBT fora are far more likely to have been the real drivers behind the decision. They just don't want to come out and say it.
- mlvljr 11y agoReddit works well from here -- and the rest of them (github, wayback machine) as well. Hint: most of this sites have actually been blocked, then unblocked multiple times! If anyone wants a wager on whether Reddit is accessible through most ISPs in a month, ping me :D
- geff82 11y agoCool. I think it is some kind of special award one can win: being blocked by an authoritarian government. Kudos to Reddit. Long live free speech.
- joesmo 11y agoSeems just like an excuse for Putin to censor dissenters.
- EGreg 11y agoAnother consequence of centralization. It's like the Hamburg court to use Germany -> EU -> Ireland to pressure Facebook to change its real names policy, or pressuring ISPs to ban it. Can't ban wordpress!
- alrayyes 11y agoIn Soviet Russia Reddit bans you! Sorry, had to be said....
- neverminder 11y agoIn America Reddit bans you, in Soviet Russia you ban Reddit.