“Zuckerberg will call”, one of the leading websites in Russian media covering the news about IT business and start-ups, was added to the list of domains banned in the country for publishing an article on bitcoin. Roskomnadzor, Russia's telecommunications sector regulator, announced it on 28 July, 2015.

Written in 2013, the article called “What are bitcoins, and who needs them?” was put on the black list by the court of the Astrakhan region for “propaganda of crimes related to the legalisation of money or other property received through crime (money laundering) and propaganda of illicit transactions”. The decision was made in February 2015.

According to the court’s decision this article contains some information forbidden for distribution within the country. The court refused to explain which part of the article contains controversial information. 

The website has 3 days until the end of July to edit or remove the material that the court determined was objectionable or it risks being blocked in Russia. Vladislav Tsiplukhin, a manager in the “Committee” publishing house working on the blacklisted website, spoke against removing of the article on Facebook. He said:

Roskomnadzor, the Federal service for telecom, information technologies and mass communications supervision, is well-known for its energetic censorship activity. But the decision to block an article about bitcoin seems strange in the light of Vladimir Putin’s latest statement on the cryptocurrency when he remarked that using bitcoin was possible for some operations in certain segments of the economy.

Daria Petushkova