A court order targeting one Wikipedia page about a form of hashish briefly caused Russian internet providers to block the entire website, exposing a fundamental technical problem at the heart of Moscow’s approach to internet censorship.
The ban, triggered by a ruling from a court in a small southern Russian town, targeted a Wikipedia entry about charas — a type of cannabis resin originating in India. Authorities deemed the page harmful and ordered it removed. Wikipedia refused. Because the site operates using the secure https protocol, internet providers faced an all-or-nothing choice: they could not block a single page without blocking the entire domain.
For a period on Monday night, Russian-language Wikipedia disappeared entirely for some users in Moscow, while others could still access it. Wikipedia itself displayed a message explaining how users could work around a potential full ban. The episode triggered widespread concern among Russian internet users already uneasy about the direction of the country’s online regulation.
By Tuesday the ban had been lifted — before it had fully taken effect across the country. The official explanation from internet watchdog Roskomnadzor was that the charas page had been edited to remove the offending content. Wikipedia’s own editors disputed that, saying the page had not been changed.
The episode is being closely watched by those who study Russia’s surveillance infrastructure. Andrei Soldatov, a journalist specialising in the Russian security services, described the Wikipedia incident as part of a broader push against https encryption. The system Russia uses to monitor internet traffic — known as SORM — is not compatible with the more secure protocol, which is also used by Facebook and Gmail. Soldatov suggested the Wikipedia standoff may have been a deliberate test of an alternative strategy: by threatening sites with bans over individual pages, authorities could pressure them into abandoning https entirely, making targeted page-level blocks technically possible.
The timing fits a wider pattern. From 1 September, a new rule requires internet companies including Facebook and Twitter to store all data relating to Russian users on servers physically located within Russia — where they would be accessible to domestic authorities. Roskomnadzor has indicated it will not immediately pursue enforcement against major platforms, but the regulation is seen as part of a sustained effort to bring foreign internet companies within reach of Russian law.
Russia’s relationship with internet freedom has deteriorated markedly since Vladimir Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. Protests organised largely through social media preceded his inauguration, and within months he had signed legislation establishing a formal register of banned websites. Since then, restrictions have steadily expanded.
