If there are two things the Russian government hates, its gay people and weed. It hates them so much that it’s willing to order Internet service providers in Russia to block access to websites that fail to censor information regarding those two subjects, even extremely popular websites like Wikipedia. Apparently there was an article on the Russian-language version of Wikipedia that contained banned information on cannabis, which prompted the government to order a nation-wide block on the website.
A Russian government agency has ordered Internet providers block access to a page on the Russian-language version of Wikipedia for containing banned information on a type of cannabis. The move could lead to the Russian-language version of Wikipedia becoming totally inaccessible, the organisation that supports the website warned, since Wikipedia uses a protected protocol which means providers cannot block separate pages on the same site. Since President Vladimir Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012, Russia has passed legislation banning sites that contain child pornography, drug-related or militant material, or which advocate suicide. Critics say the legislation restricts Internet freedoms and can lead to bans on more general content, but the government says it is aimed mainly at protecting children from indecent content. Wikimedia RU, the organisation that supports the local version of Wikipedia, earlier decided against removing the article on charas, a cannabis resin, following a warning from the communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor.