10 ms·

Github may block content if they receive a valid request from Roskomnadzor

187 points by arpa 12y ago

ge0rg 12y ago
tl;dr: Russian law enforcement required GitHub to block certain content in Russia. GitHub has complied and put up a list of the blocked URLs in this repo. From a short look at the linked/blocked documents, all of them are suicide instructions written in Russian.
- cpks 12y ago
  That actually doesn't seem unreasonable to prohibit...
  - arpa 12y ago
    why? Would it be reasonable to burn/censor books dealing with such matter, maybe describing some methods of suicide? Homicide? Different political views?
    - vidarh 12y ago
      Suicide is a thorny issue, because while on hand there are free speech issues with it, and some people do think it through and have rational reasons for wanting to commit suicide (e.g. facing a protracted degenerative disease that causes lots of pain might be one), most people who are suicidal are most at risk as a result of temporary emotional states that they have little or no control over. Accordingly, adding very small roadblocks for people who are contemplating suicide can have substantial effects in reducing suicide (an example is the restriction on amount of paracetamol/acetaminophen that can be sold per transaction in the UK), and people who attempt suicide and fail often express relief afterwards. I'm not sure where the line ought to go, but that in any case puts it in a very different category from e.g. homicide or different political views. Censoring suicide instructions is probably by far the least objectionable part of Russian censorship.
      - pra 12y ago
        Do you really suppose that state-wide censorship machine is a justifiable and "a very small roadblock" for people contemplating suicide? Are you serious? Let's put the fact aside that these "instructions" are a joke; consider a wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods. Should this page be censored? Since when removing the definition of a word in a dictionary makes a thing disappear? Sure, suicide is an issue, sure, it's better not to have it, but to censor anything mentioning it sounds like a bad adaptation of Orwells' 1984. What's the problem with suicide prevention, suicide hotlines, destigmatisation of mental health problems? I'll tell you what's the problem - it doesn't help you instill an intellectual control system, censorship and, quite frankly, a form mind control (via media filters). A censorship by any other reason is still a tool of oppression. It is not a tool for solving problems. Also, could you please provide a reference to a single study published in a respectable peer-reviewed journal of psychology, which supports your claim that small roadblocks, and especially restriction on amount of paracetamol/acetaminophen sold per transaction helps prevent suicide. Coincidentally, paracetamol poisoning a retarded way to go - it is probably more painless to kill oneself by drinking a lot of water (6l per 3hrs is enough to kill you). Why aren't drinking water sales not limited then? In fact, why aren't we all absolved of our personal responsibilities and taken care by the state, like some kind of a nanny?
      - tomjen3 12y ago
        As long as you can get into your car, remove the seat belt and run 200 miles an hour into a bridge support the idea of censoring suicide is stupid. Of course the people who fail express relief - if they don't we might lock them up. The same goes for your blanket arguments about temporary emotional states, _when you threaten a man with prison (whatever the hell you want to call it) he is way likely to say whatever he thinks you want to get out_.
  - binarymax 12y ago
    The problem with this position is that censorship is a very slippery slope. What happens when the boundaries keep getting pushed. Where do you stop? Who decides what is Ok and what is not? What may be amoral to one may not be amoral to another.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    Even if it's legitimate to prohibit, it's even more futile than trying to stop file sharing. At least a copy of The Hunger Games doesn't fit in a 4chan comment.
  - ge0rg 12y ago
    I am not so sure about it. Blocking/prohibiting information will only lead to increased interest, and it will never be possible to block all instances of that information. A far superior approach would be better social care for people who might commit suicide, but that would cost money and effort, as opposed to a symbolic act of prohibition. Besides, Internet filters always start with the really evil things, like suicide instructions or child pornography, and once established they are slowly expanded to cover terrorism, homosexual pornography, regular pornography, copyright infringement and finally political opposition. You really do not want to go down that slippery slope. One example of this is the UK porn filter which is now also used to block jihad propaganda: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/14/uk-isps-to-introduce-jihadi-and-terror-content-reporting-button http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/14/uk-isps-to...
    - vidarh 12y ago
      > One example of this is the UK porn filter which is now also used to block jihad propaganda The article does not support your claim. EDIT: To clarify, as per the reply I gave further down: There is no country wide "UK porn filter". There are voluntary filters put in place by each of the largest providers that are wildly inconsistent in what they block, and wildly ineffective. Most of the filtering is also opt-in or opt-out for most of these providers, mostly apart from blocks targeting child porn. Outside of the top 5-6 providers, many smaller providers don't filter at all.
      - dsp1234 12y ago
        They have also agreed to ensure that terrorist and extremist material is captured by their filters to prevent children and young people coming across radicalising material.
        vidarh 12y ago
        The point being there is no single government mandated "UK porn filter". Each of the biggest ISPs have individual filters. Many of the smaller ISPs don't have filters. EDIT: Maybe whoever downvoted might care to explain why? The comment is factual. There is no legally mandated filtering across the board in the UK. The only legally mandated filtering is a small set of specific court orders targeting a group of the largest ISPs, requiring them to filter specific sites (Pirate Bay being the main target).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- ptico 12y ago
  Example of "suicide instructions" (translated by @goruha): 1. Burn when entering the Earth's atmosphere Quaternary: probably open a few minutes. Availability: problematic - it is necessary to go into Earth orbit. Trustworthy: Trustworthy as much as you can do it. Notes: Exit into open space in low Earth orbit. Then turn down enough to get into the Atmosphere. You will witness of exiting view!
  - arpa 12y ago
    Practical and well worthy of censorship.
  - vegancap 12y ago
    An even better way, super glue your hands to your head, tie cheese wire around your neck, then jump off of a building so's it looks like you pulled your own head off. Might send them a pull request now actually.
    - arpa 12y ago
      Careful, you're treading on the verge of illegal now!
      - Muromec 12y ago
        Funny part about this law is that's not illegal to write such things. It only requires ISP's to block them on request.
    - dsirijus 12y ago
      You've got it in the wrong order.
      - vegancap 12y ago
        Haha very good point... I'll raise a hotfix.
  - ivan_gammel 12y ago
- gioele 12y ago
  > tl;dr: Russian law enforcement required GitHub to block certain content in Russia. GitHub has complied and put up a list of the blocked URLs in this repo. I suppose we will soon learn what is the intersection of all free spech laws of the world. Should the original Wolfenstein 3d images be released as Creative Commons and put up in a GitHub repository, will GitHub be banned in Germany as well?
  - Muromec 12y ago
    >I suppose we will soon learn what is the intersection of all free spech laws of the world. Yeah, something like ACID test but for governments. Ultimate pack of offensive material in different jurisdictions. Some nazi symbolics, some soviet symbolic, denial of Holocaust , Holodomor, some LGTB propaganda, something offensive for black or feminists, or Islam, or His Majesty the King of Thailand. And copyright infringement of course.
    - jarin 12y ago
      Sounds like a great idea, but who's going to decide what kind of porn should be included in the ACID test? Even within the US, certain types of porn are legal in some jurisdictions and not others (think various kinds of rape fantasy porn, things involving various bodily fluids, etc).
  - iSnow 12y ago
    >will GitHub be banned in Germany as well? Not in the next few years since some years ago a push to implement DNS-level blocking met with an outcry by the German geeksphere that ultimately pushed the pirate party in elections. The plans then were dropped on fear of censorship like in GB and Australia. But of course, this could be resurrected at some time - and Nazi symbols would be high on the list.
    - hereonbusiness 12y ago
      I'm not really sure, don't they already block sites that contain all kinds of nazi propaganda even if they're hosted outside of Germany? If there were hundreds of accounts sharing nazi propaganda all over Github, wouldn't they be forced by law to block Github in Germany? As far as I can see it would not be against the Github terms of service to share such content as long as it doesn't violate any laws in your jurisdiction.
- Tombone5 12y ago
  This is a really strange phenomenon, and I feel like there is a bigger context in which this exchange between the citizens and the state should be viewed. Looking at the first takedown, there is the conspicuously named account "russian-suicide", which contains a fork of a blog. A cursory look reveals one post just like the other suicide lists, but it notably references a poem about how teenagers should just kill themselves because they have only shit to expect from growing up. (http://mudacek.livejournal.com/720.html http://mudacek.livejournal.com/720.html) The poem is prefaced by an assertion the author expects Roscomnadzor will take it down soon. It seems likely that they have been taking down anything with the word suicide they've come across. My guess would be some programmer reads these poems and started putting these silly suicide instructions into repos as a form of protest, and the authorities are trying to kill the protest as well.
  - Muromec 12y ago
    If you speak about this one: https://github.com/russian-suicide/blog https://github.com/russian-suicide/blog, which is the fork of my blog, I can explain what's going on. >My guess would be some programmer got their blog shut down because it somewhere said something like "going to Ukraine is suicide" and the authorities used the censor suicide rule in their formal decision. There is no such phrase. Subject of abuse was another file in repo that contains satiric poetry about Roskomnadzor that I copied from somewhere in the early 2013 to my blog. It sure contains suicide instructions as well as story about entry site being blocked because of single file. In the early 2013 it looked funny, but now you can't really tell what is satire work and what is Russian government reality. Another repos that were added in September/October 2014 (after first github ban) by different people contained list of methods to kill yourself.
    - Tombone5 12y ago
      So is it your livejournal that is linked to in the "suicide.rst" post? What's up with the bans on suicide mentions? Is the topic growing because the public feels without hope as the poem seems to suggest, or is Roskomnadzor just tying to keep busy?
- thomasahle 12y ago
  I wonder if the fact that many of them, as far as I could see, mentioned "The Eternal Putin" as one of the reasons that the person might as well give up on life.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- andrey-p 12y ago
  From what I can tell with my vague knowledge of Russian, they're not even meant to be serious. One of the ways to go is "nanobots". Even if I disagree with the censorship, I can sorta understand what the problem is if it the list was meant to be serious - but banning black humour is just ridiculous.
  - rimantas 12y ago
    Well, some are "common sense" like crashing the car at 150km/h or throwing yourself under the train. There are however methods like programming some industrial robot to drill your skull and vacuum brains out… :/
vassilevsky 12y ago
Thanks GitHub. I can turn off FrootVPN now.
- Miner_anonym 12y ago
  Blocking any website is foolishy. Every sansible user knows about VPN. I use https://privatoria.net/ https://privatoria.net/ and have no problems. Moreover VPN helps me in developing, as i need static IP to get access to different services from different places like office, home or cafe.
  - vassilevsky 12y ago
    Those whom the government wants to protect luckily don't know about VPN.
emilburzo 12y ago
Reminds me of thepiratebay legal threats section: http://thepiratebay.se/legal http://thepiratebay.se/legal
- arpa 12y ago
  If only! But international free speech is a non-issue...
eps 12y ago
If I were to put my tinfoil hat on, these repos sure look like an attempt to force the Russian supervisory agency into issuing takedown notices and prompting friction with GitHub. There are a lot of stupid laws and I'd say GH found a very simple and unbtrusive way of dealing with one of them.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Forcing? Weren't they already sending takedown notices? Besides, this is how GH deals with all its requests (e.g. DMCA: https://github.com/github/dmca https://github.com/github/dmca).
ivan_gammel 12y ago
I would really like to see GitHub ignoring such idiotic requests. As Russian citizen, I'd rather pay for VPN to ensure global freedom of speech, than see how our governments test boundaries of lawful and sensible censorship.
- aikah 12y ago
  >I'd rather pay for VPN to ensure global freedom of speech, You using a VPN wont change russian laws.That's the issue. I'm french and piratebay is on its way to be blocked at the ISP level here. Me getting a VPN will not change the fact that this shouldnt happen and that french people need to do something to change these insane laws. Granted its tougher to go against russian politicians and lawmakers that french ones. But you're not getting more freedom of speech and information with a VPN,neither do I. I've been in Russia numerous times , and frankly I have hard time understanding what's going on there today. I think Putin genuinely thinks that without him Russia is doomed or something,which is a mistake.Russia can only survive if its politicians have faith in Russia's institutions, It's not about this or that guy,or it's just another dictatorship.
  - javert 12y ago
    Stealing intellectual property is entirely different from censorship, and I'm disappointed to see these two things being lumped together here.
    - seszett 12y ago
      Censoring Github repositories because they provide suicide methods which is unlawful in Russia, and censoring thepiratebay because it provides access to copyrighted content which is unlawful in France, are exactly the same things. The legal reasons behind the censorship are not important here, it all basically comes down to whether Github recognizes the local law of countries it serves content to, or not.
      - lsaferite 12y ago
        The bigger problem then becomes, if they cater to the laws of every country they serve content into then you have this lowest common denominator of laws EVERY user of github would have to follow. If I post suicide methods in English, would that be censored? If I post inflammatory information about Chinese or Indian politicians, would that censored? When you start censoring, where do you draw the line? When you start allowing countries to extend their jurisdiction into 'cyberspace' how could you ever expect to not fall afoul of SOME law in SOME country. Do you only extend those concessions to large countries? Ultimately it's github's decision to make in this case, but companies should have more than profit (or marketshare) in mind. I find censorship repugnant. While I understand you have to comply with the laws of a country in which you are physically located, I think that should be the extent to which you accommodate things like this.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
sofaking 12y ago
What is really fun (or stupid), those "suicide guides" were deliberately created for trolling roskompozor.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
blfr 12y ago
I can view it[1] so it's blocked for Russian users only, yes? [1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stevebest/suicide/master/suicide.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stevebest/suicide/master/s...
- mlvljr 12y ago
  Looks like
mathetic 12y ago
I like their attitude. They are complying with Russian government's requests while creating Streisand effect.
smikhanov 12y ago
Note that as opposed to repositories infringing copyright (those they get DMCA takedown notices for), the repository itself is not blocked, at least from the UK.
wildchild 12y ago
All these suicide manuals -- trolling. Someone trolled github by submitting suicidal texts in order to get it blocked, because morons from roskomnadzor will block such sites immediately without judgement and investigation.
- kovrik 12y ago
  Which makes this law much more stupid. You can virtually block ANY website in Russia by posting prohibited text or picture (as guest user, for example). Also, note that NO court decision required. Sites blocked imemdiately (almost).
viach 12y ago
We have distributed version control system, now looks like it's time to build decentralised package manager.
mlvljr 12y ago
Hehe, works again here! (was in and out for me)
mlvljr 12y ago
Reminds of: http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denial-of-site-access-for-certain-persons-in-accordance-with-us-law/ http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denia... http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denial-of-site-access-for-certain-persons-in-accordance-with-us-law/ http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denia...
zo1 12y ago
@Mods: Please change the title as it has a typo, the Russian entity referred to is spelled "Roskomnadzor", not "Roskompazor"
- ge0rg 12y ago
  This looks like a pun by the submitter, exchanging "надзор" (supervision/monitoring) with "позор" (shame).
  - arpa 12y ago
    Can confirm, source: i am the OP.
homakov 12y ago
I'm Russian and I don't support it at all. Github is losing its face
- danabramov 12y ago
  I was under impression you don't work from Russia most of the time these days. Pardon me if I'm wrong. I'd rather have no problems accessing Github without VPN than worry about Github saving its face in this situation.
  - mlvljr 12y ago
    The whole story is nothing more than mutual trolling :)
  - homakov 12y ago
    I don't work from Russia and I want Github to be blocked in Russia.
    - danabramov 12y ago
      How would that be helpful to anyone?
      - homakov 12y ago
        Russia is doomed to fail and I want it to happen as soon as possible, to have a probably better country
tokenizerrr 12y ago
This is odd. How come when russia requests a block it only gets blocked for russians, but when america requests a block (DMCA) it gets blocked for everyone worldwide?
- weavie 12y ago
  Probably because GitHub is based in the US.
- dagw 12y ago
  The difference is that a DMCA request is a takedown request, not a block request, so to legally comply with the DMCA you have to stop hosting the file. The Russians in this case don't have legal jurisdiction to demand that github removes the file, all they can do is ask nicely that github blocks them. Had the files been hosted within Russia then no doubt they would have the legal jurisdiction to demand they be taken down.
- blfr 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure that if you send a take-down notice alleging copyright infringement from another country, material in question is blocked for everyone, too.
- wil421 12y ago
  Probably because they are incorporated in the US and could be drug into court here more easily than Russia. I also heard the EU calling for Google to break up but I doubt that will happen. Did this have to do with some kind of censorship or was it copyright related?
- stemc43 12y ago
  Odd? Image you're a Github. There are thousands of paying accounts in Russia and also a zillion Russians contributing to open-source projects. Now imagine all these people now have no access and start sending emails asking why their paid accounts now aren't working? Russian devs working on tight schedule, forereigners working in Russia, subs doing contracts for american companies - now all of them are DENIED. Would it really be better for github to continue blocking all those innocent people because of a clearly a set-up type suicide-notes post?
colinbartlett 12y ago
So how long until it's blocked again because of one of the 100 or so forks?
rmc 12y ago
I wonder if it's legal for Russia to block LGBT topics. I presume GitHub will censor that too.
B5geek 12y ago
This is where I really don't understand the concept of trying to force your law/will/idea(ls) on other people. -Today I posted an image of an apple on my web-page. -The city in the next town over has decided that images of apples are bad/wrong/evil and has passed a law banning the display of apples. -The city that I live in gets an angry letter from the other city upset about the portrayal of apples and the wanton disregard for their laws. Why oh why can't we live in a world where the concept of "If this material is illegal in your country, you shouldn't be looking at it." or "Be aware of laws that pertain to you and respect them or change them if you disagree."
- arpa 12y ago
  Well you have never been a tyrant either, eh? Sure you wouldn't understand...
- xbryanx 12y ago
  The concept you describe is a philosophy in and of itself. Sounds like a great place to me, but I think it's fair to say that at least some people on this planet would rather live under a different set of governing principles. At a higher level, I want to live in a world where they can live in that different society, and we can live in ours.
- _almosnow 12y ago
  > This is where I really don't understand the concept of trying to force your law/will/idea(ls) on other people. You should have wrote: "on other people that live under the same legal jurisdiction". Your attitude towards the law is a real problematic attitude that is currently more common in this 'generation' (generation not referring exactly to people of a certain age, but more as people living in a certain time). Since we have internet now and there are many movements that promote 'freedom' in all of their possible interpretations, many people find it easy to go over the top and start demanding things like "Be aware of laws that pertain to you and respect them _or change them if you disagree_". You guys should take time to understand what law is and why is it good for it to exist, and also, why you should respect the jurisdiction pertaining to other regions or other people (EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH IT). If the majority of citizens in this world understood this really simple civical principle, most of the current problems with the world would be nonexistant.
beaknit 12y ago
Do you think it occurs to the average russian citizen that their country resembles Germany in the 1930's?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
tomcam 12y ago
So Github banned Brendan Eich who was so mild in his beliefs they were unknown for years after he contributed to a principled cause. However, they welcome the Russian Federation, which has thrown thousands of people into gulags, taken over media outlets, and has rolled over US allies with impunity.
- ue_ 12y ago
  What's this about Github banning Brendan Eich?
- elementai 12y ago
  Could you please elaborate on rolling over US allies, please? Which are those exactly?
- jmcqk6 12y ago
  > Github banned Brendan Eich What in the world are you talking about? A google search shows nothing, but this. https://github.com/BrendanEich https://github.com/BrendanEich
  - tomcam 12y ago
    I was totally wrong. See above.
- tomcam 12y ago
  I'm an idiot! I blanked and decided he was CEO of Github, not Mozilla. Downvotes to my totally irrelevant comment richly deserved. Apologies. Thanks for calling me out.
elementai 12y ago
Let me clarify a bit, I'm a former employee of russian telecom operator. Almost everyone can file a complaint. Roskomnadzor's experts decide if it's valid (no court order is needed) then sends notice, and a site's owner has 3 days to comply. Telecom operator doesn't have to block entire site, only the offending content. But, as you know it's not always possible due to, you know, https or absence of DPI hardware. And almost all, I think, who filed complaints, tried to show the absurdity of the situation. It's the essence of situation in Russia, government tries to do some "good", but even then it does it mostly horribly wrong. Incompetence is everywhere empowered by the fact that those incompetent people are here to stay.
GuiA 12y ago
> "Although, we may not always agree with the choices the Russian government has made, we respect the country's sovereignty and recognize that Russians may have different cultural sensitivities" GitHub has a right to do whatever they want with their product; I don't really care. But this sort of double speak is infuriating. Calling "cultural sensitivities" the expressions of an authoritatian government that systematically persecutes its citizens is a major "fuck you" to all Russians.
- DominikR 12y ago
  The issue here are the suicide instructions written in Russian language so it definitely is about "cultural sensitivities" and not about persecution of civilians by an authoritarian government. Just because it is okay in your or my culture to distribute such content doesn't mean it is everywhere else - nor that it should be as long as laws reflect the will of the people. Even in US there are topics that will get you into real trouble, not just your page censored. For example: Try creating a blog where you instruct your readers on how to build an explosive belt or bombs. Maybe combine it with religious fundamentalist rhetoric. You'd probably even end up in jail for that.
  - maxerickson 12y ago
    Would there be consequences for merely providing information? http://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Munitions-Handbook-Department-Army/dp/1619493969 http://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Munitions-Handbook-Departme...
    - DominikR 12y ago
      It's always a matter of the type of content you distribute and the reach you have. Take for example Anwar al-Awlaki. He was a US citizen and his content was extremist religious views that he distributed via Internet. Without a trial or conviction he was killed by a drone strike for that, as was his 16 year old son in a second drone strike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
  - 12y ago
tomjen3 12y ago
So let me get this right: Github, an american company, bows down to threads by a russian company, about russian law, to censor american peoples access? How the hell is this not a much bigger story?
- philtar 12y ago
  Censor Russian people's access.
Grue3 12y ago
Fuck Github for complying with those requests. This is censorship, they don't have to bend over to accomodate it.

187 points by arpa 12y ago

ge0rg 12y ago

tl;dr: Russian law enforcement required GitHub to block certain content in Russia. GitHub has complied and put up a list of the blocked URLs in this repo. From a short look at the linked/blocked documents, all of them are suicide instructions written in Russian.

cpks 12y ago
That actually doesn't seem unreasonable to prohibit...
- arpa 12y ago
  why? Would it be reasonable to burn/censor books dealing with such matter, maybe describing some methods of suicide? Homicide? Different political views?
  - vidarh 12y ago
    Suicide is a thorny issue, because while on hand there are free speech issues with it, and some people do think it through and have rational reasons for wanting to commit suicide (e.g. facing a protracted degenerative disease that causes lots of pain might be one), most people who are suicidal are most at risk as a result of temporary emotional states that they have little or no control over. Accordingly, adding very small roadblocks for people who are contemplating suicide can have substantial effects in reducing suicide (an example is the restriction on amount of paracetamol/acetaminophen that can be sold per transaction in the UK), and people who attempt suicide and fail often express relief afterwards. I'm not sure where the line ought to go, but that in any case puts it in a very different category from e.g. homicide or different political views. Censoring suicide instructions is probably by far the least objectionable part of Russian censorship.
    - pra 12y ago
      Do you really suppose that state-wide censorship machine is a justifiable and "a very small roadblock" for people contemplating suicide? Are you serious? Let's put the fact aside that these "instructions" are a joke; consider a wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods. Should this page be censored? Since when removing the definition of a word in a dictionary makes a thing disappear? Sure, suicide is an issue, sure, it's better not to have it, but to censor anything mentioning it sounds like a bad adaptation of Orwells' 1984. What's the problem with suicide prevention, suicide hotlines, destigmatisation of mental health problems? I'll tell you what's the problem - it doesn't help you instill an intellectual control system, censorship and, quite frankly, a form mind control (via media filters). A censorship by any other reason is still a tool of oppression. It is not a tool for solving problems. Also, could you please provide a reference to a single study published in a respectable peer-reviewed journal of psychology, which supports your claim that small roadblocks, and especially restriction on amount of paracetamol/acetaminophen sold per transaction helps prevent suicide. Coincidentally, paracetamol poisoning a retarded way to go - it is probably more painless to kill oneself by drinking a lot of water (6l per 3hrs is enough to kill you). Why aren't drinking water sales not limited then? In fact, why aren't we all absolved of our personal responsibilities and taken care by the state, like some kind of a nanny?
    - tomjen3 12y ago
      As long as you can get into your car, remove the seat belt and run 200 miles an hour into a bridge support the idea of censoring suicide is stupid. Of course the people who fail express relief - if they don't we might lock them up. The same goes for your blanket arguments about temporary emotional states, _when you threaten a man with prison (whatever the hell you want to call it) he is way likely to say whatever he thinks you want to get out_.
- binarymax 12y ago
  The problem with this position is that censorship is a very slippery slope. What happens when the boundaries keep getting pushed. Where do you stop? Who decides what is Ok and what is not? What may be amoral to one may not be amoral to another.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Even if it's legitimate to prohibit, it's even more futile than trying to stop file sharing. At least a copy of The Hunger Games doesn't fit in a 4chan comment.
- ge0rg 12y ago
  I am not so sure about it. Blocking/prohibiting information will only lead to increased interest, and it will never be possible to block all instances of that information. A far superior approach would be better social care for people who might commit suicide, but that would cost money and effort, as opposed to a symbolic act of prohibition. Besides, Internet filters always start with the really evil things, like suicide instructions or child pornography, and once established they are slowly expanded to cover terrorism, homosexual pornography, regular pornography, copyright infringement and finally political opposition. You really do not want to go down that slippery slope. One example of this is the UK porn filter which is now also used to block jihad propaganda: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/14/uk-isps-to-introduce-jihadi-and-terror-content-reporting-button http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/14/uk-isps-to...
  - vidarh 12y ago
    > One example of this is the UK porn filter which is now also used to block jihad propaganda The article does not support your claim. EDIT: To clarify, as per the reply I gave further down: There is no country wide "UK porn filter". There are voluntary filters put in place by each of the largest providers that are wildly inconsistent in what they block, and wildly ineffective. Most of the filtering is also opt-in or opt-out for most of these providers, mostly apart from blocks targeting child porn. Outside of the top 5-6 providers, many smaller providers don't filter at all.
    - dsp1234 12y ago
      They have also agreed to ensure that terrorist and extremist material is captured by their filters to prevent children and young people coming across radicalising material.
      - vidarh 12y ago
        The point being there is no single government mandated "UK porn filter". Each of the biggest ISPs have individual filters. Many of the smaller ISPs don't have filters. EDIT: Maybe whoever downvoted might care to explain why? The comment is factual. There is no legally mandated filtering across the board in the UK. The only legally mandated filtering is a small set of specific court orders targeting a group of the largest ISPs, requiring them to filter specific sites (Pirate Bay being the main target).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
ptico 12y ago
Example of "suicide instructions" (translated by @goruha): 1. Burn when entering the Earth's atmosphere Quaternary: probably open a few minutes. Availability: problematic - it is necessary to go into Earth orbit. Trustworthy: Trustworthy as much as you can do it. Notes: Exit into open space in low Earth orbit. Then turn down enough to get into the Atmosphere. You will witness of exiting view!
- arpa 12y ago
  Practical and well worthy of censorship.
- vegancap 12y ago
  An even better way, super glue your hands to your head, tie cheese wire around your neck, then jump off of a building so's it looks like you pulled your own head off. Might send them a pull request now actually.
  - arpa 12y ago
    Careful, you're treading on the verge of illegal now!
    - Muromec 12y ago
      Funny part about this law is that's not illegal to write such things. It only requires ISP's to block them on request.
  - dsirijus 12y ago
    You've got it in the wrong order.
    - vegancap 12y ago
      Haha very good point... I'll raise a hotfix.
- ivan_gammel 12y ago
gioele 12y ago
> tl;dr: Russian law enforcement required GitHub to block certain content in Russia. GitHub has complied and put up a list of the blocked URLs in this repo. I suppose we will soon learn what is the intersection of all free spech laws of the world. Should the original Wolfenstein 3d images be released as Creative Commons and put up in a GitHub repository, will GitHub be banned in Germany as well?
- Muromec 12y ago
  >I suppose we will soon learn what is the intersection of all free spech laws of the world. Yeah, something like ACID test but for governments. Ultimate pack of offensive material in different jurisdictions. Some nazi symbolics, some soviet symbolic, denial of Holocaust , Holodomor, some LGTB propaganda, something offensive for black or feminists, or Islam, or His Majesty the King of Thailand. And copyright infringement of course.
  - jarin 12y ago
    Sounds like a great idea, but who's going to decide what kind of porn should be included in the ACID test? Even within the US, certain types of porn are legal in some jurisdictions and not others (think various kinds of rape fantasy porn, things involving various bodily fluids, etc).
- iSnow 12y ago
  >will GitHub be banned in Germany as well? Not in the next few years since some years ago a push to implement DNS-level blocking met with an outcry by the German geeksphere that ultimately pushed the pirate party in elections. The plans then were dropped on fear of censorship like in GB and Australia. But of course, this could be resurrected at some time - and Nazi symbols would be high on the list.
  - hereonbusiness 12y ago
    I'm not really sure, don't they already block sites that contain all kinds of nazi propaganda even if they're hosted outside of Germany? If there were hundreds of accounts sharing nazi propaganda all over Github, wouldn't they be forced by law to block Github in Germany? As far as I can see it would not be against the Github terms of service to share such content as long as it doesn't violate any laws in your jurisdiction.
Tombone5 12y ago
This is a really strange phenomenon, and I feel like there is a bigger context in which this exchange between the citizens and the state should be viewed. Looking at the first takedown, there is the conspicuously named account "russian-suicide", which contains a fork of a blog. A cursory look reveals one post just like the other suicide lists, but it notably references a poem about how teenagers should just kill themselves because they have only shit to expect from growing up. (http://mudacek.livejournal.com/720.html http://mudacek.livejournal.com/720.html) The poem is prefaced by an assertion the author expects Roscomnadzor will take it down soon. It seems likely that they have been taking down anything with the word suicide they've come across. My guess would be some programmer reads these poems and started putting these silly suicide instructions into repos as a form of protest, and the authorities are trying to kill the protest as well.
- Muromec 12y ago
  If you speak about this one: https://github.com/russian-suicide/blog https://github.com/russian-suicide/blog, which is the fork of my blog, I can explain what's going on. >My guess would be some programmer got their blog shut down because it somewhere said something like "going to Ukraine is suicide" and the authorities used the censor suicide rule in their formal decision. There is no such phrase. Subject of abuse was another file in repo that contains satiric poetry about Roskomnadzor that I copied from somewhere in the early 2013 to my blog. It sure contains suicide instructions as well as story about entry site being blocked because of single file. In the early 2013 it looked funny, but now you can't really tell what is satire work and what is Russian government reality. Another repos that were added in September/October 2014 (after first github ban) by different people contained list of methods to kill yourself.
  - Tombone5 12y ago
    So is it your livejournal that is linked to in the "suicide.rst" post? What's up with the bans on suicide mentions? Is the topic growing because the public feels without hope as the poem seems to suggest, or is Roskomnadzor just tying to keep busy?
thomasahle 12y ago
I wonder if the fact that many of them, as far as I could see, mentioned "The Eternal Putin" as one of the reasons that the person might as well give up on life.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
andrey-p 12y ago
From what I can tell with my vague knowledge of Russian, they're not even meant to be serious. One of the ways to go is "nanobots". Even if I disagree with the censorship, I can sorta understand what the problem is if it the list was meant to be serious - but banning black humour is just ridiculous.
- rimantas 12y ago
  Well, some are "common sense" like crashing the car at 150km/h or throwing yourself under the train. There are however methods like programming some industrial robot to drill your skull and vacuum brains out… :/

vassilevsky 12y ago

Thanks GitHub. I can turn off FrootVPN now.

Miner_anonym 12y ago
Blocking any website is foolishy. Every sansible user knows about VPN. I use https://privatoria.net/ https://privatoria.net/ and have no problems. Moreover VPN helps me in developing, as i need static IP to get access to different services from different places like office, home or cafe.
- vassilevsky 12y ago
  Those whom the government wants to protect luckily don't know about VPN.

emilburzo 12y ago

Reminds me of thepiratebay legal threats section: http://thepiratebay.se/legal http://thepiratebay.se/legal

arpa 12y ago
If only! But international free speech is a non-issue...

eps 12y ago

If I were to put my tinfoil hat on, these repos sure look like an attempt to force the Russian supervisory agency into issuing takedown notices and prompting friction with GitHub. There are a lot of stupid laws and I'd say GH found a very simple and unbtrusive way of dealing with one of them.

icebraining 12y ago
Forcing? Weren't they already sending takedown notices? Besides, this is how GH deals with all its requests (e.g. DMCA: https://github.com/github/dmca https://github.com/github/dmca).

ivan_gammel 12y ago

I would really like to see GitHub ignoring such idiotic requests. As Russian citizen, I'd rather pay for VPN to ensure global freedom of speech, than see how our governments test boundaries of lawful and sensible censorship.

aikah 12y ago
>I'd rather pay for VPN to ensure global freedom of speech, You using a VPN wont change russian laws.That's the issue. I'm french and piratebay is on its way to be blocked at the ISP level here. Me getting a VPN will not change the fact that this shouldnt happen and that french people need to do something to change these insane laws. Granted its tougher to go against russian politicians and lawmakers that french ones. But you're not getting more freedom of speech and information with a VPN,neither do I. I've been in Russia numerous times , and frankly I have hard time understanding what's going on there today. I think Putin genuinely thinks that without him Russia is doomed or something,which is a mistake.Russia can only survive if its politicians have faith in Russia's institutions, It's not about this or that guy,or it's just another dictatorship.
- javert 12y ago
  Stealing intellectual property is entirely different from censorship, and I'm disappointed to see these two things being lumped together here.
  - seszett 12y ago
    Censoring Github repositories because they provide suicide methods which is unlawful in Russia, and censoring thepiratebay because it provides access to copyrighted content which is unlawful in France, are exactly the same things. The legal reasons behind the censorship are not important here, it all basically comes down to whether Github recognizes the local law of countries it serves content to, or not.
    - lsaferite 12y ago
      The bigger problem then becomes, if they cater to the laws of every country they serve content into then you have this lowest common denominator of laws EVERY user of github would have to follow. If I post suicide methods in English, would that be censored? If I post inflammatory information about Chinese or Indian politicians, would that censored? When you start censoring, where do you draw the line? When you start allowing countries to extend their jurisdiction into 'cyberspace' how could you ever expect to not fall afoul of SOME law in SOME country. Do you only extend those concessions to large countries? Ultimately it's github's decision to make in this case, but companies should have more than profit (or marketshare) in mind. I find censorship repugnant. While I understand you have to comply with the laws of a country in which you are physically located, I think that should be the extent to which you accommodate things like this.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

sofaking 12y ago

What is really fun (or stupid), those "suicide guides" were deliberately created for trolling roskompozor.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

blfr 12y ago

I can view it[1] so it's blocked for Russian users only, yes? [1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stevebest/suicide/master/suicide.md https://raw.githubusercontent.com/stevebest/suicide/master/s...

mlvljr 12y ago
Looks like

mathetic 12y ago

I like their attitude. They are complying with Russian government's requests while creating Streisand effect.

smikhanov 12y ago

Note that as opposed to repositories infringing copyright (those they get DMCA takedown notices for), the repository itself is not blocked, at least from the UK.

wildchild 12y ago

All these suicide manuals -- trolling. Someone trolled github by submitting suicidal texts in order to get it blocked, because morons from roskomnadzor will block such sites immediately without judgement and investigation.

kovrik 12y ago
Which makes this law much more stupid. You can virtually block ANY website in Russia by posting prohibited text or picture (as guest user, for example). Also, note that NO court decision required. Sites blocked imemdiately (almost).

viach 12y ago

We have distributed version control system, now looks like it's time to build decentralised package manager.

mlvljr 12y ago

Hehe, works again here! (was in and out for me)

mlvljr 12y ago

Reminds of: http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denial-of-site-access-for-certain-persons-in-accordance-with-us-law/ http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denia... http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denial-of-site-access-for-certain-persons-in-accordance-with-us-law/ http://sourceforge.net/blog/clarifying-sourceforgenets-denia...

zo1 12y ago

@Mods: Please change the title as it has a typo, the Russian entity referred to is spelled "Roskomnadzor", not "Roskompazor"

ge0rg 12y ago
This looks like a pun by the submitter, exchanging "надзор" (supervision/monitoring) with "позор" (shame).
- arpa 12y ago
  Can confirm, source: i am the OP.

homakov 12y ago

I'm Russian and I don't support it at all. Github is losing its face

danabramov 12y ago
I was under impression you don't work from Russia most of the time these days. Pardon me if I'm wrong. I'd rather have no problems accessing Github without VPN than worry about Github saving its face in this situation.
- mlvljr 12y ago
  The whole story is nothing more than mutual trolling :)
- homakov 12y ago
  I don't work from Russia and I want Github to be blocked in Russia.
  - danabramov 12y ago
    How would that be helpful to anyone?
    - homakov 12y ago
      Russia is doomed to fail and I want it to happen as soon as possible, to have a probably better country

tokenizerrr 12y ago

This is odd. How come when russia requests a block it only gets blocked for russians, but when america requests a block (DMCA) it gets blocked for everyone worldwide?

weavie 12y ago
Probably because GitHub is based in the US.
dagw 12y ago
The difference is that a DMCA request is a takedown request, not a block request, so to legally comply with the DMCA you have to stop hosting the file. The Russians in this case don't have legal jurisdiction to demand that github removes the file, all they can do is ask nicely that github blocks them. Had the files been hosted within Russia then no doubt they would have the legal jurisdiction to demand they be taken down.
blfr 12y ago
I'm pretty sure that if you send a take-down notice alleging copyright infringement from another country, material in question is blocked for everyone, too.
wil421 12y ago
Probably because they are incorporated in the US and could be drug into court here more easily than Russia. I also heard the EU calling for Google to break up but I doubt that will happen. Did this have to do with some kind of censorship or was it copyright related?
stemc43 12y ago
Odd? Image you're a Github. There are thousands of paying accounts in Russia and also a zillion Russians contributing to open-source projects. Now imagine all these people now have no access and start sending emails asking why their paid accounts now aren't working? Russian devs working on tight schedule, forereigners working in Russia, subs doing contracts for american companies - now all of them are DENIED. Would it really be better for github to continue blocking all those innocent people because of a clearly a set-up type suicide-notes post?

colinbartlett 12y ago

So how long until it's blocked again because of one of the 100 or so forks?

rmc 12y ago

I wonder if it's legal for Russia to block LGBT topics. I presume GitHub will censor that too.

B5geek 12y ago

This is where I really don't understand the concept of trying to force your law/will/idea(ls) on other people. -Today I posted an image of an apple on my web-page. -The city in the next town over has decided that images of apples are bad/wrong/evil and has passed a law banning the display of apples. -The city that I live in gets an angry letter from the other city upset about the portrayal of apples and the wanton disregard for their laws. Why oh why can't we live in a world where the concept of "If this material is illegal in your country, you shouldn't be looking at it." or "Be aware of laws that pertain to you and respect them or change them if you disagree."

arpa 12y ago
Well you have never been a tyrant either, eh? Sure you wouldn't understand...
xbryanx 12y ago
The concept you describe is a philosophy in and of itself. Sounds like a great place to me, but I think it's fair to say that at least some people on this planet would rather live under a different set of governing principles. At a higher level, I want to live in a world where they can live in that different society, and we can live in ours.
_almosnow 12y ago
> This is where I really don't understand the concept of trying to force your law/will/idea(ls) on other people. You should have wrote: "on other people that live under the same legal jurisdiction". Your attitude towards the law is a real problematic attitude that is currently more common in this 'generation' (generation not referring exactly to people of a certain age, but more as people living in a certain time). Since we have internet now and there are many movements that promote 'freedom' in all of their possible interpretations, many people find it easy to go over the top and start demanding things like "Be aware of laws that pertain to you and respect them _or change them if you disagree_". You guys should take time to understand what law is and why is it good for it to exist, and also, why you should respect the jurisdiction pertaining to other regions or other people (EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH IT). If the majority of citizens in this world understood this really simple civical principle, most of the current problems with the world would be nonexistant.

beaknit 12y ago

Do you think it occurs to the average russian citizen that their country resembles Germany in the 1930's?

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

tomcam 12y ago

So Github banned Brendan Eich who was so mild in his beliefs they were unknown for years after he contributed to a principled cause. However, they welcome the Russian Federation, which has thrown thousands of people into gulags, taken over media outlets, and has rolled over US allies with impunity.

ue_ 12y ago
What's this about Github banning Brendan Eich?
elementai 12y ago
Could you please elaborate on rolling over US allies, please? Which are those exactly?
jmcqk6 12y ago
> Github banned Brendan Eich What in the world are you talking about? A google search shows nothing, but this. https://github.com/BrendanEich https://github.com/BrendanEich
- tomcam 12y ago
  I was totally wrong. See above.
tomcam 12y ago
I'm an idiot! I blanked and decided he was CEO of Github, not Mozilla. Downvotes to my totally irrelevant comment richly deserved. Apologies. Thanks for calling me out.

elementai 12y ago

Let me clarify a bit, I'm a former employee of russian telecom operator. Almost everyone can file a complaint. Roskomnadzor's experts decide if it's valid (no court order is needed) then sends notice, and a site's owner has 3 days to comply. Telecom operator doesn't have to block entire site, only the offending content. But, as you know it's not always possible due to, you know, https or absence of DPI hardware. And almost all, I think, who filed complaints, tried to show the absurdity of the situation. It's the essence of situation in Russia, government tries to do some "good", but even then it does it mostly horribly wrong. Incompetence is everywhere empowered by the fact that those incompetent people are here to stay.

GuiA 12y ago

> "Although, we may not always agree with the choices the Russian government has made, we respect the country's sovereignty and recognize that Russians may have different cultural sensitivities" GitHub has a right to do whatever they want with their product; I don't really care. But this sort of double speak is infuriating. Calling "cultural sensitivities" the expressions of an authoritatian government that systematically persecutes its citizens is a major "fuck you" to all Russians.

DominikR 12y ago
The issue here are the suicide instructions written in Russian language so it definitely is about "cultural sensitivities" and not about persecution of civilians by an authoritarian government. Just because it is okay in your or my culture to distribute such content doesn't mean it is everywhere else - nor that it should be as long as laws reflect the will of the people. Even in US there are topics that will get you into real trouble, not just your page censored. For example: Try creating a blog where you instruct your readers on how to build an explosive belt or bombs. Maybe combine it with religious fundamentalist rhetoric. You'd probably even end up in jail for that.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  Would there be consequences for merely providing information? http://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Munitions-Handbook-Department-Army/dp/1619493969 http://www.amazon.com/Improvised-Munitions-Handbook-Departme...
  - DominikR 12y ago
    It's always a matter of the type of content you distribute and the reach you have. Take for example Anwar al-Awlaki. He was a US citizen and his content was extremist religious views that he distributed via Internet. Without a trial or conviction he was killed by a drone strike for that, as was his 16 year old son in a second drone strike. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki
- 12y ago

tomjen3 12y ago

So let me get this right: Github, an american company, bows down to threads by a russian company, about russian law, to censor american peoples access? How the hell is this not a much bigger story?

philtar 12y ago
Censor Russian people's access.

Grue3 12y ago

Fuck Github for complying with those requests. This is censorship, they don't have to bend over to accomodate it.