RKN blocked the website of the “online referendum for self-determination of the republics of the Russian Federation” and other resources

On February 8, Roskomnadzor blocked a number of websites in Russia. Roskomsvoboda reports this.

The following resources were blocked:

• Website of blogger Kamikadze D (Dmitry Ivanov). A criminal case was opened against the blogger himself for “fakes” about the army; in December he was put on the federal wanted list.
• Website of the Chuvash blogger Alexander Udikov. The basis, according to the RKN notification, was “false reports of acts of terrorism” or the dissemination of other “unreliable socially significant information.”

• Website of the “Online referendum on self-determination of the republics of the Russian Federation.” As Roskomsvoboda notes, most likely the “Unknown Agency” that demanded the blocking saw on the site calls for violating the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. The “referendum” was launched within the framework of the Forum of Free Peoples of Post-Russia with the support of Ukrainian deputies, SOTA notes .

• On February 24, Roskomnadzor demanded that the media write about the war in Ukraine only with reference to official Russian sources. Journalists were also prohibited from calling the “Russian special operation” an attack, invasion, or declaration of war. Otherwise, the supervisory authority threatened with blocking and fines of up to five million rubles. A similar demand appeared after the announcement of “partial mobilization.”

• According to Roskomsvoboda, as of February 8, for reasons of military censorship, Roskomnadzor has already blocked more than 10 thousand sites, and in total in 2022, 247,492 thousand Internet resources were added to the register of banned sites. “After the start of the ‘special military operation’, we strengthened our counteraction to the spread of calls for extremism and terrorism, mass unrest and ‘fake’ news on the Internet,” Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov previously stated in an interview with Kommersant.