Trolling the state for high stakes: demand blocking of Wikipedia

The provocateur Vadim Zhartun demands to block the “extremist article” on Wikipedia, knowing full well that the state will not dare to do it

In the 80s, during the street protest actions in Poland, citizens organized a mass “self-arrest”, voluntarily loading hundreds of them into car bridges. The police pushed them, but they still stood in line, demanding strict implementation of the law, which the state could not fulfill.

Now is another time, but such trolling can be no less effective, demonstrating the absurdity of the current legislation. So says St. Petersburg blogger, business consultant, journalist and provocateur Vadim Zhartun, who seriously proposes to overwhelm government agencies ... with complaints about Wikipedia, demanding to block this resource. He himself has already begun to file complaints . Why do this? According to the logic of Vadim, here is a tricky multi-path.

Item 1 . We proceed from the postulate that the state cannot block Wikipedia and will never do that . Proof of this are the numerous court rulings from regional courts, which took verdicts to include certain articles of Wikipedia in the list of materials prohibited for distribution in the territory of the Russian Federation. As a result, Roskomnadzor has never had the courage to execute these court decisions. Since Wikipedia uses the HTTPS protocol, it’s impossible to block a separate URL - you’ll have to block the entire site. The RKN never dared to do that. Each time there were some excuses, just not to go to extreme measures. Wikipedia pages were repeatedly entered in the register of prohibited information, but each time the authorities at the last moment "jumped" and refused from their threats.
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Since 2013, Wikipedia has tried to block several times. Militiamen came across articles on cocaine , cannabis smoking , Charas , methods of suicide, and the Russian Wikisource page, which contains the text of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” .

Wikipedia does not intend to edit, much less delete articles at the request of Roskomnadzor.

Wikipedia pages have been repeatedly entered in the registry of prohibited information and, nevertheless, it is still available. Every time it became clear that blocking could not be avoided, Roskomnadzor made an elegant feint with its ears.

Once they said that the problem page was edited and now there are no complaints about it, although no visible changes were found in it. Another time they were satisfied with changing the address where the information is located. The third announced blocking, but did not send the page address to the "upload" for providers. For the fourth time, the Federal Drug Control Service arched and “bred” the violation it had previously found.

Why can't the state block Wikipedia?

“The Wikipedia site is the sixth most visited in the world (56 million visitors, 225 million views per month). Simply put, Wikipedia is a treasure trove of knowledge of our civilization, one of its most amazing creations and evidence of the greatness of the human mind, - writes Vadim Zhartun. - The scale of absurdity and shame when blocking Wikipedia is such that no one in their right mind and solid memory wants to get involved with it. So much so that the official state authorities actually violate the law [so as not to block Wikipedia]. With this we will catch them. ”

Item 2 . As is known, in 2012, very strict legislation was adopted in Russia to censor and block unwanted sites. As usual, repressive legislation was adopted under the pretext of protecting children and protecting national interests. We are talking about the Federal Law №139- about the unified register of prohibited sites and domains. According to this law, absolutely any citizen can file a complaint against any website on the Internet where, in his opinion, the law is being violated. Just fill in one of the online forms:

• on the Roskomnadzor website;
• on the website of the Safe Internet League ;
• through the form of receiving applications from citizens of the Ministry of Interior;
• using the form on the website of the prosecutor's office .

Anyone can file a complaint. So, according to Russian legislation, “now Wikipedia (theoretically)“ can block any moron in the RF, ”Vadim writes.

Item 3 . Since the state cannot find the courage to block Wikipedia (point 1), and anyone can file a complaint (point 2), this opens up the possibility for mass effective trolling of state structures, in which the state will have to cede and thereby recognize the idiocy of existing legislation. This is point 3.

“The stupidity of the created system of prohibitions and its ability to prohibit that which cannot be explicitly forbidden, we will take as the basis of our tactics of dealing with locks,” explains Vadim Zhartun. In this case, a logical device called apagogiya is used , that is, bringing the situation to an absurdity. This technique proves the inadequacy of some opinion in such a way that a contradiction is revealed either in itself or in the consequences resulting from it. By acting strictly within the framework of the current legislation, citizens can demonstrate the inconsistency of Federal Law No. 139-FZ.

The current laws on the promotion of pornography, drugs, homosexuality and suicide are so vaguely worded that, if literally executed, any site can be banned. Site blocking follows one after the other. The trend is obvious: “The Runet is smoothly turning into a kind of North Korean Gwangmyeon network with about a thousand ideologically verified sites promoting Juche ideas. If you, like me, are not happy with such a prospect, this disgrace must be stopped, ”the St. Petersburg activist believes.

This logic works only with the validity of the postulate from paragraph 1 that the state really will not find the strength to block Wikipedia. But is this really a reliable postulate that is beyond doubt? However, this is not so important. After all, even if the state finds the strength to block Wikipedia, it will become even more obvious and obvious confirmation of the insanity that is happening in the country. Perhaps the same logic was guided by another activist Timur Bulatov, who yesterday filed a lawsuit with the St. Petersburg City Court demanding that the Facebook social network be banned throughout Russia. Although it is likely that this is not a troll, but a genuinely indignant citizen (for example, the phrase “Or get used to, or dump, critters” is present in his address), but in this case even his actions help to accomplish the task of massive government trolling.



If Wikipedia is banned, then even more Russian citizens will learn to use tools to circumvent censorship, the knowledge of which is mandatory for any educated person.

It turns out that in any outcome a civil action with a mass filing of complaints against Wikipedia can be considered successful.