Russia briefly bans Wikipedia

Russia briefly banned Wikipedia this week before lifting the restrictions on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.

Authorities ordered Internet service providers in the country to block the site after a court found that an article on a type of cannabis resin violated a law banning information about drug use.

{mosads}The entire site was reportedly banned, rather than just the offending article, because Wikipedia uses the secure HTTPS protocol, Fusion reported. The ban lasted only a few hours, according to the AP.

Communications regulator Roskomnadzor said that the ban had been lifted because the information had been removed. But The Guardian reported that administrators at Wikipedia said the page for the resin, called charas, had not changed.

The Wikimedia Foundation, the group that supports Wikipedia, said in a statement that the decision to lift the ban was “a testament to the efforts of Russian Wikipedia’s volunteer editor community, who are committed to making accurate and neutral information on Wikipedia available for millions of readers in Russia.”

“The Russian Wikipedia community held active discussions regarding the notice and article,” the foundation said. “Editors improved the quality of the article, including by adding further information and citations to reliable sources (for example, the United Nations). These changes brought the article in line with Wikipedia’s standards for neutrality, accuracy, and reliability.”

Websites have faced blocks before for posting information about drug use. Code repository Github has been blocked in the past for hosting information related to suicide.

Russian authorities have also shown a willingness to crack down on the way Internet services do business in the country.

Starting in September, companies like Twitter and Google will have to store information about their Russian users on data centers inside Russia. Critics of the law worry that if the information is hosted inside Russia, it could give the government significant power over the Internet inside the country.

The Kremlin exerted control over the Internet in the aftermath of protests in 2012, and Roskomnadzor has blocked websites used by prominent opponents of President Vladimir Putin’s government. 

–This report was updated at 2:46 p.m.