A banner about a possible block of the site in Russia and a link with instructions in case access is restricted appeared on Wikipedia's main page. The cause was a conflict with Roskomnadzor over one article, and Irkutsk IT specialists discuss whether this will really lead to the encyclopedia's closure and what lies behind the dispute.

“Wikipedia has begun to be blocked in Russia. Find out what to do before it’s too late” — such a banner appeared on the homepage of the online encyclopedia.
It links to a page with instructions on how to use the resource if access to it is blocked. The page appeared in response to Roskomnadzor’s decision to restrict access to one of the site’s articles devoted to a certain drug. Due to the technical features of how the internet resource works, blocking one article leads to blocking the resource as a whole.
“Are we really going to lose Wikipedia, and what is really behind the conflict between the free encyclopedia and Roskomnadzor?” Irkutsk IT specialists will answer this question.
Dmitry Taevsky, editor-in-chief of the babr.ru portal:
- I think these are temporary problems. This is a very powerful resource, so the issue will somehow be resolved, perhaps even at the government level. It is clear that Roskomnadzor is acting within its authority, but I think the scale of the loss of such a resource is significant enough for the government to intervene.
In my opinion, this is purely a management problem. Roskomnadzor is acting according to established rules in this case; from its point of view, it is right. It’s just that our laws are imperfect. It is unlikely that the authorities want to introduce censorship; otherwise they would act differently and would have long since shut down many other resources.
Dmitry Salko, director of an internet marketing agency:
- We have not yet encountered this problem. I cannot say anything about other providers. And, to be honest, I do not think Wikipedia will be shut down. I believe it will work normally.
It was a big surprise to me that they are trying to shut down some page there. I did not look at which one exactly, but most likely it really violates something. I think this is a matter of law enforcement. At one time there were talks that Wikipedia was a foreign agent controlled from the state of Florida, but I do not believe these speculations.
Vladimir Siminenko, head of the irkipedia.ru project:
- Anything is possible in this world: a brick may fall on someone, Wikipedia may be shut down tomorrow. Another matter is that we are used to feeling protected from certain scenarios of how events may develop. For example, we walk along the sidewalk and know that a car will not run us over on the sidewalk. And when it does run us over, we are surprised, because the probability was very low. The same is true with Wikipedia. Yesterday or the day before yesterday it seemed to us that the probability here was very low. Today it already seems, on the contrary, very high, because they have already started blocking it. Well, excuse me, a few years ago it seemed impossible to us that we would annex the territory of another country to ourselves. And now, apparently, we have already gotten used to that.
But even if Wikipedia is shut down, life will not stop! Anyone who knows how to use the internet at a level slightly above average will get around the ban. Well, most people will simply forget about it and that’s all.
In general, controlling Wikipedia is not difficult, especially for the state. It is enough to hire about a hundred people who will register there and competently monitor everything. Well, if the state simply wants to ban undesirable content from being distributed on its territory, that is also its right. Just as any parent has the right to control their children’s access to the internet or television channels. Although from a PR point of view, a ban on Wikipedia is not beneficial for Russia right now.
In my opinion, this is simply a case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. And Roskomnadzor and Wikipedia — each is demonstrating its principles. That’s all.