'Imagine a world without free knowledge', in Russia

July 10, 2012

Access to the is disabled across almost all its pages today, due to the Russian parliament, the Duma, debating amendments to the law "About information" which may lead to censorship of  through blacklisting and filtering of internet sites.

The aims to creating a blacklist of internet sites alleged to host child pornography, drug related material, extremist material and other content illegal in the country. It also proposed several other changes in the law, including holding providers of telecommunication services liable for failing to protect children.

Critics, including Google, Yahoo, search engine and social networking site  noted that as-written the legislation contained many technical faults likely to negatively impact legitimate internet use. In protest, the Russian Wikipedia community decided upon a near-total blackout of contents on July 10. The blackout banner includes the text: "Imagine a world without free knowledge", and summarises the details of the bill. Readers are warned that articles, such as Suicide, may be considered "harmful" due to ambiguity in the proposed legislation, risking a block of the entire website by Russia-based Internet providers.

Later in the day, the popular blogging platform issued a statement similarly opposed to the legislation: "[...Livejournal] considers the introduction of any restrictions on freedom of expression and information in the Internet to be unacceptable."

The announcement by the Russian Wikimedia community states:

In January, the ran a similar 'blackout protest' for 24 hours, protesting US anti-piracy laws the Stop Online Piracy Act and  (PIPA). That action resulted in those laws being reconsidered. An earlier blackout, in October last year, saw the community successfully oppose other Internet censorship legislation.

Speaking to Wikinews in January, the Wikimedia Foundation's chief executive, Sue Gardner, explained "[t]he Wikimedia movement does not have a lot of experience with advocacy, and probably mistakes will get made. At this time the Wikimedia Foundation doesn't have any plans to develop policy governing protests or advocacy work. But, I think it probably does make sense for the Foundation to create venues for these discussions".