The entire Wikipedia was briefly banned in Russia a few days ago. The reason was a page relating to drug use which Wikipedia had refused to edit or delete. The ban was very brief and was lifted before it had even gone into effect for most Russian users. However, this downtime was enough to people to create a wave of panic and raise a concern in Russia about a crackdown on online freedom.

So, this is the story: a court in a small Russian town ordered to ban a Wikipedia page about some Indian form of hashish, because it contained harmful information. However, since Wikipedia uses secure https protocol, some ISPs would have to ban the entire service, and this is exactly what happened. The users also saw a message from the website explaining how to circumvent a ban.

Then a Russian Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor explained that the ban was lifted because the forbidden information about the drug had been redacted, although Wikipedia editors said nothing changed.

It should be noted that in a few days, a rule comes into effect? which requires online social media such as Facebook and Twitter to store the data of all Russian users onshore. Although Roskomnadzor promised not to check compliance of major websites until 2016, this rules makes the companies to think over further keeping servers in Russia, where data would be accessible by Russian authorities.

Earlier in 2015, Russia, China and some central Asian dictatorships submitted a proposal to the United Nations, clearly aimed at the United States, calling for them not to use the worldwide web “to interfere in the internal affairs of other states or undermine their stability”.