MOSCOW, December 17 (RIA Novosti) – The vast majority of websites on Russia’s new Internet blacklist contain no illegal content and have been blocked due to the technological ineptness of the agency enforcing the ban, the Pirate Party of Russia said Monday.
Government oversight agency Roskomnadzor, authorized to ban websites containing child pornography or promoting suicide and drug use without a court order, does so by banning IP addresses, which can be used by several websites, said the group, one of 40-plus “pirate parties” campaigning for informational freedom worldwide.
As of Sunday, Roskomnadzor had blocked 80 IP addresses, covering some 2,200 websites, but about 2,120 of those – or 96 percent – did not contain illegal content, the Pirate Party said in a press release.
Kindergartens, bedroom furniture makers and vegetarian cookbooks were some of the innocent victims of the blacklist, according to a database compiled by the party and available online in Russian.
Many banned sites are hosted outside Russia and remain accessible at least through some internet service providers in the country.
Roskomnadzor’s press service did not return a telephoned request for comment by the time of this writing.
Information freedom supporters call the blacklist, which has been up and running since November, a potential tool of online censorship. No reports of possible use of the blacklist for political purposes have been available so far, but numerous online reports criticized it for ineffectiveness both in selecting targets and enforcing the ban.
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