Russian Government Threatening To Block Reddit Over Cannabis 141
An anonymous reader writes: The Russian Government is threatening to block the social linking site Reddit across its country if they do not comply with removing a thread dedicated to growing cannabis. According to a post on VK.com, Roskomnadzor the Russian FCC, has asked Reddit administrator to read their emails and their social media posts stating that they want /r/trees brought down which had posted an article about growing narcotic plants. Recently, Reddit changed its rules to allow illegal discussions on its site but they say that they would continue to block things such as copyrighted material.
It's already BEEN blocked. (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/3grpdf/tifu_by_getting_reddit_banned_in_russia/
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I'm surprised reddit didn't simply fall in step. They seem to have no problems banning users and subs already on things that they disagree with.
Re:It's already BEEN blocked. (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't something a lot of Reddit users and probably admins disagree with so that is probably part of it. More importantly it's illegal in Russia and most of the world, but it is LEGAL in 4 (and counting) US states. So does Reddit start banning things that are illegal only in some places? What happens when Saudi Arabia's government objects to threads being posted with pictures showing women not appropriately dressed for Saudi Arabian standards? Or the subreddits for beer and craft brewing, etc I am sure are all highly illegal in several Muslim countries, gotta ban those too right?
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I seem to recall that that user is not actually white. I am sure you will find another justification, however. *sighs* Save the drama for Reddit.
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Problem is that "everyone has their rights", but this doesn't indicate why white supremacists aren't allowed their right to hate niggers and make it absolutely clear that this is what they feel. Or why people don't have the right to make copies of stuff they bought. Or why, if it's only licensed, why they need to buy another license for the same thing on a different medium. Or why you're not allowed the right to sell weed. Or have sex with a minor who agrees to the act. Or be a minor and have sex with an adult. Or distribute pictures of yourself to your boy or girl friend naked when the boy/girl friend is not an adult either.
Why are these rights not rights? Because collectively we decided through our respective governments that they are not rights you have to exercise because of their result on the welfare of others.
Why is it wrong to be able to say "I am a racist and I refuse to change. I hate niggers, I believe they are spawn of Satan and are not even human"? Why is it wrong to draw pictures of gruesome tortures of black people and post them on the same reddit? After all, pictures of similar gruesomely burned bodies can be seen in any documentary on the Holocaust. Violence, or realistically believable threats of violence can be argued as a right that would infringe on the more important rights to safety and health of others, so this can easily be considered restricted. But absent that, why should reddit ban hateful bigoted screeds of morons who really REALLY don't have empathy for others if they don't appear to be nearly identical with their own perceived self?
ANY reasoning to stop that can ONLY be justified with something other than "gwown ups realizing all people deserve wights". What about the right of the mad bigot?
Because you don't merely have rights and some rights aren't valid by fiat.
Rights equate with freedoms. A tolerant society should have freedoms "from". That is, freedoms "from" unlawful search and seizure, from discrimination, from , well, all those things that violate our rights to live a free and unfettered, secure life. Howevber, rights do NOT equate with "freedoms TO" engage in certain activities.. That is, freedoms to rape pillage, steal, and otherwise engage in activities that generally impinge on ANOTHER'S freedoms. So for a true understanding of whether the Russian gov't o
Re: It's already BEEN blocked. (Score:1)
It's a matter of venue. Russia is a sovereign country with the privilege and right to outline acceptable behavior. If they don't like what you say, they can kick you out.
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Whereas pricks like you are perfectly acceptable.
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Funny, I don't need to eat any words. What did Mashiki say that was racist, and how is responding to him in such a prickish way appropriate in polite society?
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That is the face of modern social justice. If they're not lying, they're inventing garbage to smear(you/someone else/etc) with.
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I guess you haven't heard of /r/coontown which still exists even though /r/fatpeoplehate was banned.
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Go be a racist prick somewhere else. Reddit isn't for racist pricks. Get your own forum, perhaps?
Hmm...now where was I racist? That's right I wasn't. But it sure makes it easy to see the face of 'social justice.' That being, step out of line and get called racist, I'm surprised you didn't toss in how I was sexist and two or three other made-up things since that seems to be the SJW MO these days.
But, since /r/coontown is still alive and kicking, and I hazard you post there. I guess that you're a racist prick for posting there right? See how easy that works you filthy racist.
Of course reddit bans su
Re:It's already BEEN blocked. (Score:4, Informative)
No it isn't. I'm in St. Petersburg right now and can access it just fine.
Going to the following link [reddit.com] will result in an error 403, but you can browse anywhere else just fine, HTTPS and all. This should not be marked insightful.
Phew lucky there is no thread on (Score:3, Funny)
distilling Vodka. Written by homosexuals ... who dislike Assad.
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Huh? What's wrong with distilling Vodka in Russia?
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Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"allow illegal discussions on its site" (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's probably just a red herring for a spot of "great firewall of China"-style censorship.
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There is also an issue if they are capable of doing things like: making informed guesses, making and applying plans, monitoring them and modifying them to adjust to the actual conditions (that is beyond comprehension even of the well educated software people that we work with), following a process and diverting from it when necessary and when adverse effects are still acceptable, communicating efficiently, respecting people of different opinions while knowi
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This is Russia. This is Russian Government. I'd wager illegal is whatever they decide it is.
Logically, it's not much different from the US government's Feinstein Amendment banning posting recipes for how to make explosives.
In either case, it's suppressing knowledge instead of the illegal actions themselves.
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Growing cannabis in the US is still illegal at fed level. Just because a minority of deadsville states have legalized purchasing it, primarily to stop filling their prisons and ruining people lives for a relatively benign activity, doesn't mean we don't face jail time if caught with it across most of the country affecting the vast majority of the population.
FTFY
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Growing cannabis in the US is still illegal at fed level. Just because a minority of deadsville states have legalized purchasing it, primarily to stop filling their prisons and ruining people lives for a relatively benign activity, doesn't mean we don't face jail time if caught with it across most of the country affecting the vast majority of the population.
FTFY
You forgot to mention cost. I highly suspect that if the Feds had given those "deadsville states", like Washington, serious grief about not respecting Federal Law, you would have seen a lot of cops holding people till Federal agents showed up. Probably more cops and people than there are Federal agents to investigate. Those wanted for Federal crimes would be moved to Federal holding facilities, where they would later be tried in Federal courts, and serve time in Federal prisons. I bet the last thing the Fed
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We can disagree here. The states that have allowed it are having a budget surplus.. and trust me a surplus of money in government is a very rare thing.
I'm with you -- potheads and their "don't give a shit" attitude about work quality is annoying... but I don't want to have a good chunk of my salary go for locking them up, nor do I want to have to pay for their welfare because they cannot get meaningful employment because of their criminal record. Nor do I want to deal with the increased crime rate when th
Re:"allow illegal discussions on its site" (Score:4, Informative)
in some jurisdictions.
An in some jurisdictions possession/sale is illegal.
In most parts of the world there are landrace species of cannabis that just grows wild, as nature intended.
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In NO jurisdiction, at least none that I'm aware of, it's illegal to TALK about cannabis.
If it is, please inform me so I can avoid jurisdictions that actually make KNOWLEDGE illegal.
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USA. If you are found discussing how to grow canabis, you will be investigated by the police and they WILL find something. Even if they have to put it in your pocket. You in a car with your girlfriend has a tiny amount of weed and you get shot in a mistaken drug sting operation? Her possession is justification for the police shooting you dead.
I don't know about you, but choosing between jail and death means I choose the one where I'm still alive.
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Like I needed another reason to avoid going to this country...
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Did you know this before he said it or do you know it because he said it, because people say all sorts of shit on the internet.
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I can't help but think of https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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If it is, please inform me so I can avoid jurisdictions that actually make KNOWLEDGE illegal.
How about the US government [cryptome.org]?
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Russia, duh.
Specifically, this is Administrative Violations Codex, article 6.13 [zakonrf.info], titled "Propaganda of narcotics, psychotropic substances or their precursors, plants containing narcotic or psychotropic substances or their precursors, and their parts containing narcotic or psychotropic substances or their precursors, and new potentially dangerous psychoactive substances".
Note that it is not a part of criminal law, so the most you can get is a fine and a few days in jail. But this is also the legal basis for
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Recently, Reddit changed its rules to allow illegal discussions on its site
It doesn't say which "illegal discussions" it decided to allow, nor exactly what is illegal about them. Perhaps what they meant was "discussion of illegal activities"?
I suspect whoever wrote that sentence wasn't really thinking about what they meant to say.
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AFAIK, the discussion itself is legal in Russia. But Roskomnadzor maintains a list of websites publicly displaying (in the most strict sense: I haven't heard of their attention to pages which require any kind of registration to read) "information harmful to children" and ISPs are required by law to "protect children" from viewing the sites in that list.
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When write with no article, sound like chinaman.
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Or how several countries fuck with Uber and so on and on and on?
That was an odd example. Most countries have clear laws regulating passenger traffic that Uber clearly violates. There is no legal difference between Uber and any other illegal/gypsy cab, even if they come with a cool app and hype.
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In that case the US (and quite a few other countries) should watch out. They're getting there.
approved discussion topics (Score:3, Insightful)
The Central Committee has, however, approved and recommended the following:
Re:approved discussion topics (Score:4, Insightful)
How to get elected with fire bombs and terror scares.
Actually, discussing how the FSB staged bombings to boost the Dear Leader's ratings gets you polonium tea.
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Yeah, I meant to include "how to assassinate critics of the regime".
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Seriously? Hmm... No. I will take the polonium now and happily (comparatively) live out my remaining time in a pure opiate bliss. Drug the fuck out of me and do not perform any life-saving techniques.
I will share what I feel are relevant (and rare-ish) Grateful Dead lyrics...
Hang me, oh, hang me, so I'll be dead and gone.
Hang me, oh, hang me, so I'll be dead and gone.
I wouldn't mind your hanging boys but, you wait in jail so long.
Oh Lord, I been all around this world.
The person claiming to be responsible... (Score:3)
Has posted a Today I Fucked Up about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/... [reddit.com]
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Seems to me that Reddit should run the numbers and tell Putin to go fuck himself.
Do they even have to run the numbers? Russian Redditors can probably setup up a proxy or VPN without much trouble.
This is just a death-pang of the ancient city/nation-states outliving their usefulness. We have global communications now, not men on horses carrying parchment. Their technology is obsolete; we don't want to buy it.
Silly Poster... (Score:2)
They should have discussed how to grow trees instead.
Always call their bluff (Score:2)
This censorship push only works if people cooperate with it. If they are forced to block half the internet then the entire regime fails.
Simply refuse to cooperate. Call their bluff.
So Reddit gets blocked OFFICIALLY in Russia? So what? There are lots of tools to bypass that stuff and the more that Russia employs censorship the more Russians will employ anti censorship tools. Unless Russia goes full North Korea and isolates the entire Russian internet... they're not going to be able to control it.
And frankly
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Simply refuse to cooperate. Call their bluff.
In Putin's Russia, bluff calls you
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Don't kid yourself, there is a lot of filtering.
We don't talk about it but... yeah. We filter everything. Does every organization do that? Not every organization is competent.
Not cannabis (Score:3, Informative)
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To clarify, Reddit introduced an IP-based block for this post, such that Russian IP addresses get 403. Consequently, RKN unblocked it.
So basically Reddit is helping Russian authorities censor.
more than that (Score:1)
I actually like it.
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Do toilets at the Moscow airports count as an official smoking room? The thick fog of smoke makes it disgusting going for a slash every time I've transited through Moscow.
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Normally in airports there should be smoking areas made from a glass panes.
At least they are making some effort to reduce smoking. It will not be fast for sure, as it is extremely difficult, almost impossible to quit smoking. Tobacco is kind of a drug too, which is extremely addictive. And a social fabric is important part of this addiction.
At
interesting (Score:1)
Oh what glorious news (Score:2)
Finally no more RT shills telling us about the wonders and joys of living in the greatest nation of the planet, under the beloved glorious Leader Wowa?
Oh, Russia (Score:1)
It has already been blocked: http://reestr.rublacklist.net/... [rublacklist.net] - welcome to Russia.
Most sane people who value privacy and freedom in Russia use TOR or VPN, because far too many websites are blocked while they contain a single "infringing" document. Unfortunately when we're talking about HTTPS the only way to block the infringing document is to take down the whole website.
Why? (Score:2)
Sheesh.
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I am told, by my daughter no less, that my tomato plants are "the bomb." (These may not be actual tomato plants and I am not a huge fan of tomatoes so I will leave that up to you to decide. I do have a lovely garden and it does contain real tomatoes.) So, if my tomato plants are the bomb then I must be a terrorist and, of course, a threat to national security. It is only logical, after all.
No body actually read about it? (Score:2)
The post in question had nothing to do with cannabis. It was about indoor growing of Magic Mushrooms.
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So, growing them outdoors is perfectly OK, then, eh?
Bye... (Score:1)
Uuum WHO CARES! Let them block it! (Score:1)
I guess they will try anything to get focus away from the Ukraine and MH17 (pay no attention to the psychopath behind the surface to air missile system, but look over here at the evil plant you are trying to grow).
Well dang, I am thinking that giving them the knowledge would allow them to mellow out a bit and let them wake up from their vodka induced stupor so they do not again mistake a very large passenger plane for their own Russian-built fighter jet.
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The USA's CIA helped overthrow the legitimate government of Ukraine to put in the present one, and you somehow think Russia is the cause of problems in the region?
This may actually improve anonymity systems (Score:1)
In order to be anonymous you need a crowd to blend into. If you add a bunch of reddit users to the list of drug sellers and buyers using anonymity systems it becomes much harder to pin-point what someone you know is using the anonymity system is doing. The same thing is true for blocking copyright content. If more people are forced into using the anonymity system it becomes more difficult to guess at who is doing more risky stuff based on just there network traffic use and spikes (like publishing a video of
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I don't know where, or when you checked, but you better re-check. You are completely confused if you think that. There is this twisted and pervasive idea that if 51% of the population votes that my kid should have to do or refrain from doing something that I should have to comply. You can "protect" your kids from drugs, but don't lie to yourself and think you have a say regarding mine. I'll handle the raising of my own child
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That works everywhere in the West. It also has its side effects - when one party accuses the other of something unthinkable and gets benefits from the judge or authority that deals with kids welfare. Seen that happening to parents. Kids get most hit but parents suffer there too. Sometimes it works of course and drug abusing sex offenders may be prohibited from abusing t
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I concede your point that the world is full of self-righteous scumbags who hide behind a veil of common ignorance while wearing silly robes.
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Last time i checked a country has the right to protect its youth from drugs...
If protect its youth from drugs translates to prohibit these drugs for everybody then there is something wrong, especially when considering that a legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco are way more damaging than Canabis.
Drugs are bad mmmkay...but jail is worse.... (Score:1)
When drugs are bad, factually educate people on why. One thing I know for sure is prison and jail are bad for people. How ever bad you think pot might be, prison and jail will fuck that person up more.
If various drugs are illegal to protect people from said drugs, for gods sake, protect the people, don't incarcerate them and ruin their lives more than the drugs might.
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Sonny, I really enjoy that you consider me "youth", but frankly, as soon as you don't get asked for ID anymore when buying liquor, you're no longer "youth".
So please stop protecting me, ok?
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Do you really want the hassle of ID access for many websites?
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No. Your webpage wants to ID me to access it. Ok.
NEXT!
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My point is, you want "them to stop protecting you" because you are an adult. But how else they know that than by asking for an ID?
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By default. If I was a minor, my parents would have had the duty to ensure I cannot access a page I am not supposed to access.
Don't shift the burden of raising your kids on society. It's YOUR job. Not mine.
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Unfortunately the entry barrier to parenthood is very low (and in fact, even lower for the stupid) and there are no technical solutions to bad parents so either we only allow intelligent and responsible people to breed or, as a society, we'll have to accept a part of this burden.
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Sorry, but no. I am in no way willing to surrender my freedoms because OTHERS cannot be bothered to take care of their offspring. So your kids will read how to grow weed, this is YOUR problem. Not mine. And if you do not want them to do so, it is YOUR duty to block those pages. Not mine.
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We'll talk when you get older and assaulted and robbed by the very same low-life kids you've insisted only they parents should raise, not the society as well.
If children are abandoned, they grow up criminals.
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Can you coherently explain why, when they wanted to ban alcohol consumption on federal level, that took a Constitutional amendment; but when they wanted to ban other substances, somehow, magically, it's just a simple law?
Where exactly in the Constitution does it grant Congress the authority to regulate the growth and consumption of drugs (or anything else) that doesn't cross the state boundary?
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