Bits.media, a Russian crypto news site, was blocked after a lawsuit without informing those involved. The site was allegedly linked to money laundering by a number of links present on Bits.media. Without mercy, Russian website visitors were excluded from this website.
Roskomnadzor, the government agency supervising the Russian mass media, did grant users access again. This was because the site was able to convince Roskomnadzor to remove the site from its blacklist.
Absolutely disagree with the verdict’.
Because of this, Bits.media became available again on 5 July, but the site does not leave it at that. The editors of the crypto news site announced that they would continue to fight against the unfair verdict of the court. Ivan Tikhonov, founder of Bits.media, finds it unacceptable that the court did not say anything:
“We are an interested party in the case, but nobody informed us about the proceedings. We didn’t get a single chance to remove the material that the Saratov prosecutor’s office questioned. We absolutely disagree with the verdict.”
It is also logical that Bits.media is not throwing in the towel just yet, as this is not the first time the site has been blocked in this way. In January of 2015, there was also an attempt to silence Bits.media — for exactly the same reason: money laundering. But did the crypto news site do this too?
The URLs in question
The URLs that caused the problems were apparently already hidden from public view. Bits.media discovered that one URL is the web address of its own crypto exchanger aggregator. The members of this news site have found out that the four other links — which caused the site to be shut down — are the addresses of other aggregators or crypto markets.
Bits.media is not the only Russian crypto news site that has been the target of attacks lately. In early April, the Roskomnadzor restricted access to the crypto news site Forklog.com. Here, as with Bits.media, the same thing happened: no warning was given before the website was blocked.
