This decision follows Russia's earlier saber rattling over cannabis cultivation threads, though these actions were not wholly without warning. On August 10th, Roskomnadzor officials published a blog post chiding Reddit for not immediately capitulating to its demands, "We assume that the website is simply understaffed during the summer holidays, but this is no excuse to risk [losing] its entire audience [in Russia]."

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, on a horse

The Roskomnadzor maintains the state's federal blacklist of websites which are supposed to deal with child pornography, extremist content or subjects under to a gag order. In reality, it's more of a clearinghouse of information that the Russian government wishes to suppress including everything from the official Jehovah's Witnesses website to the Internet Wayback Machine to Facebook event pages that promote protests of the government -- even Chess Grand Champion/outspoken Putin critic Garry Kasparov's personal website.

[Image Credit: Bloomberg via Getty Images]