A popular Russian Wikipedia site has recently been taken under the control of the Russian Government. Lurkmore will no longer be available to the Russian public. Though only in Russian, the website can be viewed here.
According to an article in The Economist , author, J.Y. has said,
"Although no one had officially told [founder] Mr. Homak anything, it soon became clear that the site had fallen into the Russian government’s “Single Register” of web content to be banned under a law passed by the Duma in June."
Russia is imposing new laws which will limit the public's access to particularly offensive or vulgar websites. This new law was passed on November 1st. Lurkmore, according to founder Dmitry Homak, Lurkmore is
“the kind of stuff said by the characters on SouthPark”.
Already, more than 180 websites have been added to a list which fall under one or more of three categories. They are,
"child pornography, instructions or propaganda for drug use, and material promoting suicide."
Russian blogger Andrey Tselikov posted on Global Voices Online, providing a link to the list of websites that are currently banned from the Russian internet. That list can be found here. How effective is the method of blocking used by the Russian government? Well, Irina Levova of the Russian Associaction for Electronic Communications has pointed out that the websites are currently being blocked by IP address. The issue is that IP adresses can be changed easily and therefore, the public will then be able to access these websites. So the issue of how the Russian government will continue to enforce their new policies arises.