Russia’s feud with social media escalates as the country officially bans Reddit.
The decision to ban the site came after Russia’s Federal Drug Control Service said that the content found on Reddit promotes drug use, specifically a thread titled “Minimal and Reliable Methods for Growing Psilocybe [Mushrooms],” Meduza reports.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media-regulating agency, asked Reddit to remove drug-related content, according to Vocativ. Reddit administration did not respond to the agency, leading it to ban Russia’s most popular social media outlet.
This is not surprising considering the country’s relationship with both social media and narcotics. Roskomnadzor has threatened to ban Facebook (FB), Twitter (TWTR), and Google (GOOG) in the past; and when marijuana claimed legal status in Washington, D.C., the Washington Post quoted Yevgeny Bryun, the Russian Health Ministry’s top drug specialist, as saying: “What will happen is everyone will become drug addicts.”