Internet censorship and content blocking by Russian regulators: Human rights news, court updates & analysis | 28 related articles

02.07.2025

17:42

At the request of the Sovetsky District Court of Astrakhan, Roskomnadzor has blocked access in Russia to the website of the Declarator project, which focuses on officials’ incomes and property. The project team announced this.

The court ordered the blocking as a provisional protection measure in response to an administrative lawsuit—pending a decision on the case itself. Earlier, the Astrakhan Region prosecutor’s office filed the lawsuit demanding a block, alleging “discrediting of the institution of state power.”

“Back on 16 May, the court ruled that Roskomnadzor must block our site. Neither before nor during the proceedings were we notified of any grievances. Even though the project’s contact email is listed on literally every page of the website. The case file is written in such a way that our project is not mentioned at all,” Declarator stated.

No final decision on a permanent block has yet been made.

18.06.2025

20:48

Roskomnadzor has blocked Wattpad, the popular platform for stories and fanfiction, in Russia. TASS reports, citing the agency.

The decision to block the site was made “due to the systematic disregard of requirements to remove prohibited information,” including posts officials claimed contained “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.”

The agency added that at the time of the block, Wattpad had not removed 130 pages with prohibited content, contrary to the authorities’ demands. In addition, the platform owner has been fined three times, for a total of more than 5 million roubles (about US$55,000), which have yet to be paid.

Wattpad is a popular platform for writers and fanfiction authors.

15.06.2025

11:16

Russia

The Yandex.Books service has removed the book “Outbreak. The Unknown History of HIV in the USSR” by Irina Roldugina and Katerina Suverina from its website. The publication Parni+ drew attention to this.

The book tells the story of the spread of HIV in the Soviet Union and the public’s reaction to it. It also features testimonies from eyewitnesses and publications from that time.

The book was published by Individuum, whose staff have been accused of “extremist” activity due to “promoting the activities of the LGBT movement” in books released by the publisher.

11.06.2025

18:55

The online cinema service “Ivi” has removed the film “The Collapse of the World,” in which the plot involves Vladimir Putin dying. This was reported by film critic Timur Aliyev and noted by SOTA.

“It’s a shame, of course. It was the only way to legally access the original audio track, rather than watching the dubbed version,” Aliyev commented.

“Ivi” was the only major Russian streaming platform that had not censored the scene featuring a news broadcast about a new fever, SOTA observes. The episode shows footage from Russia, and behind the news anchor the hashtag #PutinDead and the headline “What has happened to Putin?” are visible.

30.05.2025

15:41

Omsk Oblast

The Kirovsky District Court of Omsk banned memes depicting Vladimir Putin as Adolf Hitler. The decision was reported by Verstka.

On 7 May, the court considered a claim from the prosecutor of Omsk’s Kirovsky Administrative District, who requested a ban on spreading 12 links.

At least five of these links contain memes showing Putin with the hairstyle and moustache worn by Hitler. Many of the memes were accompanied by the caption “Putler Kaput.” Some of the pages also included photographs from protest actions, where participants brought placards with such images of the Russian president.

Another link leads to a post on the 9GAG platform showing Putin as a detainee holding a board with his name and the phrase “A War Criminal.” Another link points to a page on Stikhi.ru depicting Putin holding a pistol to his head, with the caption: “How to save Russia from shame?”

The ban also covers a post on LiveJournal featuring a fictional cover of the magazine “Krokodil” with a photo of Putin and the caption: “A court has started to consider the case on its merits. The being stated that it was not guilty.”

The prosecutor further sought to prohibit a page on Fishki.net with a photo from a 2014 protest in Moscow in support of Ukraine, due to a placard reading: “Putin’s aggression against Ukraine is directed against Russia and Europe.”

The prosecutor justified the claim by saying these images and captions discredit Putin. The judge also stated that they insult his honour and dignity.

13.05.2025

19:31

Telegram has deleted the channel of the St Petersburg-based publication MR7, which recently lost its media licence following a demand from Roskomnadzor. ASTRA drew attention to this.

Initially, when attempting to access the channel, it was marked as private. Later, a new channel titled ‘1’ was created under its link, where an image of a cat was posted, SOTA reported. Now, attempting to follow the MR7 channel address shows a message saying that such a page does not exist.

According to Paperpaper.ru, the MR7 editorial team suspects the channel was deliberately hacked to hijack its link. Before this incident, the channel had about 2,600 subscribers.

The outlet also told Rotonda that they plan to discuss the situation with Telegram’s administration. The publication noted the channel was registered to an editorial phone number—its user received no warnings from the messenger and is confident they did not click any malicious links.

According to Important Stories, channels in Telegram usually become private when illegal content is found in them, such as advertisements for drug sales.

In January, the Supreme Court of Russia, acting on Roskomnadzor’s request, revoked MR7’s media licence. The regulatory agency explained its demand was due to the absence of ‘foreign agent’ labelling on two news items on MR7’s website, even though the outlet added the labels after being warned and paid fines for their omission.

In April, several channels that Roskomnadzor had sought to have removed in court disappeared from Telegram. Among them was the anonymous channel ‘VChK-OGPU,’ which had over a million subscribers and posted about crime in government, law enforcement, and military agencies. Its administrators accused the messenger platform of deleting the channel. Telegram’s press office stated that the ‘VChK-OGPU’ channel was deleted by its owner and added: “Possibly as a result of unauthorised access.”

11.05.2025

12:32

Russia

Apple and SoundCloud have blocked songs by Noize MC and Monetochka for listeners in Russia. This was reported by the Roskomsvoboda project.

According to the project, Apple has blocked eight tracks, including “Strana Dozhdei” (“Land of Rains”), “Ne vse doma” (“Not All There”), “Kooperativ ‘Lebedinoye Ozero’” (“Swan Lake Cooperative”), and “Kriokamery” (“Cryochambers”). At the end of March, these songs appeared in the register of banned websites. Roskomsvoboda notes that the eight tracks blocked by Apple include different versions of the same songs.

Roskomnadzor explained that tracks from Noize MC’s new album “Ne vse doma” (“Not All There”), released this year and featuring a track of the same name, are being blocked, including on “Yandex.Music,” for “dissemination of false socially significant information.”

The song “Childfree,” performed by Noize MC and Monetochka, was also blocked. It has disappeared from Apple Music, and the album containing it is not available on SoundCloud. However, the instrumental version of the track, which contains no lyrics, has not been blocked by Apple. There has been no official announcement by Russian authorities regarding a ban on the song “Childfree.”

At the same time, SoundCloud has blocked only some of the tracks from Noize MC’s “Ne vse doma” album, as well as “Childfree,” which was uploaded to the platform separately, outside of the album release.

17.04.2025

18:10

At the request of Roskomnadzor, Apple has removed the DVPN VPN service from the Russian App Store. The developer, Alexander Litreev, wrote about this on his Telegram channel.

“Naturally, this is absolutely illegal and we will put pressure on Apple for such antics, including through the courts,” he said. Litreev also noted that the development team had not received any letters or requests from the Russian authorities, and that there was no court ruling ordering the block.

“Apple blindly complied with this illegal demand, in effect making itself complicit in censorship. This is not only a flagrant violation of the law but also an act of support for a dictatorial regime that is waging the largest war in Europe since the Second World War and committing war crimes,” reads his statement.

14.04.2025

11:43

Arkhangelsk Oblast

The page of former Severodvinsk city council deputy (Arkhangelsk region) and Shiyes defender Sergey Ilyukhin was blocked on VKontakte at the request of Roskomnadzor. He reported this on his Telegram channel.

The page has been unavailable since 1 April. “They blocked it because of my views, for criticising Putin and his Eat Russia party. Eight thousand subscribers, lots of information and videos—all down the drain,” the man wrote.

In October 2024, Ilyukhin was added to the “foreign agents” register. The Ministry of Justice explained this by saying the deputy “spread false information” about the policies of the Russian authorities and “as a correspondent” appeared on “foreign agent” media platforms. They were most likely referring to his blog on the website of the publication 7×7, which had itself been included in the register earlier. That same month, due to his “foreign agent” status, the Severodvinsk city council revoked Ilyukhin’s mandate. In February 2025, the politician was fined 30,000 roubles (around US$330) under the article on failing to report oneself as a “foreign agent” (part 1, article 19.34 of the Administrative Offences Code).

07.04.2025

09:55

Russia

Telegram has removed the anonymous channel “VChK-OGPU,” which had more than one million subscribers and published reports on crime within government, security, and military agencies. The project presented itself as a source of leaks from security officials.

In the project’s backup channel last night, it was reported that the main channel was deleted without any prior warning. The authors of “VChK-OGPU” suggest that the leadership of the messenger service was behind this move.

The channel’s removal is likely connected to a decision by the Tagansky District Court in Moscow. On 3 December 2024, the court fined the messenger 4 million roubles (approx. US$44,000) for failing to remove prohibited information (Article 13.41, part 2, of the Code of Administrative Offences). The reason was Telegram’s refusal to take down 13 channels and eight posts, among which was “VChK-OGPU.” The Prosecutor General’s Office had demanded the channels be deleted on various grounds—including allegations of spreading “fakes” and discrediting the Russian military.

In addition to “VChK-OGPU,” five more channels covered by this ruling, which reported on political events in Russia and the war in Ukraine, were deleted today. In each case, new channels appeared at those addresses, noting they were created only today. At the former link for “VChK-OGPU,” there is now a channel called “Pozdnyakov 4.0,” with a cover photo of “Male State” founder Vladislav Pozdnyakov. At the address of another deleted channel, a page now appears called “We Will Win in the Special Military Operation!”

14:03 The Telegram press service claims the “VChK-OGPU” channel was deleted by its owner, according to a report by Mediazona.

“The channel was deleted by its owner, possibly as a result of unauthorised access. We are conducting an investigation,” the press service told the publication.

Shortly before this, the Dossier Centre wrote that the founder of “VChK-OGPU” had confirmed to them that the channel was deleted by the messenger’s administration. They also stated that the account used to register the channel is now blocked.

Сюжет

Internet censorship and content blocking by Russian regulators

02.07.2025

18.06.2025

15.06.2025

11.06.2025

30.05.2025

13.05.2025

11.05.2025

17.04.2025

14.04.2025

07.04.2025