Roskomnadzor unblocked Bits.media: the editorial office seeks to cancel the court decision on blocking

The Bits.media website has been available again on the territory of the Russian Federation since Tuesday, July 5. However, the editors intend to continue the fight against the unfair court verdict.

The editors of the second largest audience of Russian-language cryptomedia Bits.media managed to cancel the decision of Roskomnadzor (RKN) to enter into
black list prohibited sites. Editorial specialists found out that in the lines of the verdict of the Volzhsky District Court of the city of Saratov, closed from the public, the URL of the exchanger aggregator at bits. media/exchanger. The page had to be temporarily disabled, after which the RKN allowed the hoster to restore access for Russian providers to the media site.

The editors believe that four more URLs encrypted in the same text of the decision of the provincial court URL are the addresses of other aggregators or crypto exchangers.

The management of Bits.media intends to bring the trial to an end, as it believes that the address of the page of the cryptomedia website was illegally banned.

“We consider the court’s decision illegal and will seek its annulment,” says Ivan Tikhonov, founder of Bits.media. “We have made the decision to disable the page that has become the subject of proceedings so that the site remains available during the trials.”

Attorneys from the Digital Rights Center will help fight for the overturning of the Bits.media court decision. These are specialists in the activities of providers, the work of online media, the circulation of cryptocurrencies and data protection.

It was they who, two years ago, successfully achieved the unblocking of the exchange aggregator Bestchange and proved during the proceedings that the prosecutor’s office and the court violated substantive and procedural law – since the civil circulation of cryptocurrencies in the Russian Federation is not prohibited, and the parties to the case should be able to exercise the rights guaranteed by the Code on administrative litigation. The lawyers of the Center for the Protection of Digital Rights also have other successful cases, for example, those related to
blocking news portal Bitcoininfo.ru and
crypto exchanges Binance.

While Bits.media remained on the blacklist, in the Russian Federation, in fact, access to the two largest Russian-language cryptomedia on the planet was limited at once – including Forklog.com. Roskomnadzor restricted access to Forklog back in early April – just like in the case of Bits.media, without warning and without explanation. The blacklisting comes just days after the magazine’s editors condemned a military special operation in Ukraine. Forklog remains blocked until now, because, according to the RKN, it contains information prohibited for distribution in Russia.