The site gets 30,000 hits a day, totalling around three million visitors a year.
Gay.ru, Russia’s oldest gay-themed website, could be about to be banned under the country’s ‘gay propaganda’ rules. The Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media have threatened to add the website to an internal blacklist, unless they remove certain unspecified content.
Gay.ru runs news articles on LGBTQ topics, as well as having a ‘Day in History’ section related to LGBTQ people and events.
Speaking to Gay Star News, Ed Mishin, who works for the site, said he had no idea why they had received the warning, since the website had been operational for 20 years.
Mishin said: “The site was blacklisted because ‘any person from the internet, even a child, can read it.’
He said that the official warning says that the website “contains information that spreads propaganda of non-traditional sexual practices, and its dissemination in Russia is prohibited.
“[It] may incite interest [for minors] to try non-traditional sexual practices which is a real threat to their health.”
Russia has some of the, if not the, worst LGBTQ rights in the developed world. During the country’s recent Presidential election, an advert ran which warned people that they would have to live with a gay person if they didn’t vote. And a recent poll found that 83% of Russians consider gay sex to be “reprehensible.”
In 2013, Vladimir Putin signed into effect a gay propaganda rule, which banned the promotion of “non-traditional” sexual orientations to minors. Under the law, a Calvin Klein advert was banned, there were calls to ban the game FIFA 17, and the Warwick Rowers naked calendar was banned.
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