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The Russian language version of Wikipedia shut down its site in protest of a bill that proposes a unified blacklist of all websites containing banned content.
The website, on its front page, said it was blacking itself out for 24 hours over the Russian Parliament’s hearing to amend the law—a law which could lead to “the closure of access to Wikipedia in Russian.”
The bill’s sponsors claim the legislation is needed to provide better protection for children from harmful information, including drug abuse, and suicide, along with child pornography, state media RT reported.
In the language of the bill, its sponsors call for a federal register that would include offending websites carrying allegedly harmful information or content, according to Radio Free Europe. The proposal would also tell website owners and providers to close those websites down.
“The Wikipedia community protests against censorship, which threatens free knowledge provided for mankind,” the website stated in Russian.
“Strict adherence to the text in the proposed bill will result in a system in Russia implemented similar to the ‘Great Firewall of China,’” Wikipedia said, referring to the Chinese regime’s hypercontrol of all information flow over the Internet.
