Roskomnadzor, the censorship agency in Russia, has decided to ban Reddit. The decision appears to relate to a single Reddit thread on the topic of growing magic mushrooms. According to various news reports the ban came after the Russian government failed to receive a response back from Reddit in relation to the thread. In Russia the Roskomnadzor has the power to block any site without the need for a court order. They unilaterally made the decision to block Reddit based on the magic mushroom thread. This shouldn’t surprise many Internet users in Russia since the government blocks a wide range of websites.
In the case of the current Reddit ban it appears the company may share some responsibility. According to the Russian government the team at Reddit failed to respond when they requested that a thread entitled “Minimum and reliable method of growing psilocybe” be deleted from the site. Apparently the post was lengthy and written in Russian. The lack of response from Reddit led to a blanket ban of the site. You can decide for yourself whether or not that’s the full story or if the move to block the site was just another example of censorship. The Russian government has been blocking sites for years and I wouldn’t expect that to stop anytime soon.
Internet users in Russia can still access Reddit and other banned sites with a VPN service. Using a VPN will encrypt your connection and give you an IP address in another country. Doing so will open access to sites as if you were in that country. For example, if you connect to a VPN server in the United States you will be able to view sites like Reddit as if you were sitting on your laptop in the US and browsing locally. You will find a number of VPNs on our site. Read our “Best VPN Service” post for some good options. These services are all fast and reliable. Best of all they will help protect your privacy and unblock otherwise banned sites.
