Reddit caves to Russian fungus censorship demands

Child protection laws mean there's not mushroom for drug debates

Reddit has been banned and then unbanned in Russia, following the 4chan-lite site's decision to block domestic access in the country to a single page on growing mushrooms.

After following through with its threat to censor the site over pages advising on "the cultivation of narcotic plants" [sic], Russian telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor has managed to get Reddit to acquiesce to the nation's censorship demands.

The complaint, and eventual update, were both conducted via the professional domain of social media, and culminated with a celebratory official statement on the Roskomnadzor official Facebook page.

The offending /u/ser posted a confession yesterday on Reddit's "Today, I Fucked Up" sub, in which he copped to the offending post, which is in Russian and two years old.

The effective censorship regime of the USSR was retooled and rebranded by Vladimir Putin's Russian Federation as the law "On Protecting Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development".

Prohibiting the distribution of material which "may elicit fear, horror or panic in children", the legislation allows for the blacklisting of websites which "glorify illegal drugs".

This evidently was thought to be the case with the Reddit post, which advised on "Minimal and Reliable Methods for Growing" psilocybin mushrooms. ®