Russia has no aim to block Wikipedia, but will have to over banned info

PHNOM PENH, Nov 24 (PRIME) -- The Russian government does not intend to block Wikipedia, but will be forced to do it, if the resource does not delete the information on drugs, which was found forbidden, Communications and Mass Media Minister Nikolai Nikiforov told reporters Tuesday.

“As far as I remember, we are talking about the articles containing information on how to prepare narcotic substances. If there is an official decision of our drug control service that the information is in the illegal category, the communications service will certainly block these pages. We are not talking about blocking the whole resource,” Nikiforov said.

“It depends on how Russian law is respected. The law is clear and must be fulfilled on the territory of the Russian Federation. That is why if there is some information treated as forbidden from the point of view of the Russian law, the communications service takes measures it should do.”

Wikipedia, however, can be blocked completely in the country as it uses the HTTPS protocol, which makes restriction of access to certain pages impossible.

“It’s a technical feature of providers, mainly small ones, which lacks identification of some IP addresses,” the minister said.

The communications service said Monday that it would add four articles of Wikipedia to the register of forbidden information. The authority earlier received a decision of the Federal Drug Control Service that found forbidden information in five Wikipedia articles: on cocaine, methylamphetamine, amphetamines, JWH-018 and MDMA. They contained information on the order of preparation and use of drugs.

One of the articles, on JWH-018, would not be added to the register as the banned information was deleted.

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