Russian language website
Lurkmore has suspended operations after another brush with Russian authorities. Established in 2007, the website, which was powered by MediaWiki, was an online encyclopedia that covered aspects of folklore and Internet subculture. At the time of suspending operations it offered around 6,500 articles which also covered issues such as Internet memes. News of the site’s closure was announced by its founder Dmitry Khomak on Facebook last Monday.
The voluntary closure came about after the website had a number of run ins with Roskomnadzor – a Russian government body that monitors media in Russia. In 2012 Lurkmore was added to Russia’s official list of ‘forbidden sites’ for containing information about drugs. In April 2014 it was asked to remove “unsanctioned” pictures of Valery Syutkin, a Russian singer and musician, and a former member of rock band ‘Bravo’. Later in 2014 the website carried another story which contained details related to drugs. Roskomnadzor blocked the 5 pages which contained the story and notified Lurkmore it would be blocked unless the story was removed from the site – a request the website complied with.
When announcing news about the site’s closure on his Facebook page, Mr. Khomak suggested lack of news about censorship within Russia indicated that the press in the country was no longer free. He made reference to Github, a cloud-based hosting service which was blocked for containing references to suicide, and subsequently self-censored itself by blocking the ‘offending’ pages within the Russian federation. He also suggested that his own financial difficulties had influenced his decision to close the site.
Should Lurkmore have suspended operations? Let us know your thoughts. Add your comments below.
