Pornhub and YouPorn adult websites blocked in Russia, as authorities tell citizens to ‘meet people in real life’

It isn’t the first time that Russian authorities have blocked the site, and it’s not the first time that they’ve been mocked on Twitter for it either

Just as there are many different kinds of porn, people often engage with porn for many different reasons

(Getty)

Pornhub and YouPorn, the biggest adult websites in the world, have been blocked in Russia. And things have become very odd.

The site has been blocked by the Russian state watchdog Roskomnadzor, which is known in English as the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. Among other things, that agency is in charge of monitoring the internet and blocking sites that the government doesn’t want to be used.

And the latest sites to fall victim of that are Pornhub and YouPorn, the world’s biggest collections of free pornography. That move began on Tuesday but put in practice previously issued court decisions, according to the Moscow Times, and could be reviewed later.

It isn’t the first time that the agency has blocked Pornhub – doing so in September 2015. And it isn’t the first time that it has been roundly mocked on Twitter for doing so.

And at that time it replied to a message from one Russian citizen asking whether the the agency would at least “suggest an alternative” to the popular site.

“Dear Lyolya, as an alternative you can meet someone in real life,” the official account replied on Twitter.

And this time around the account has posted to “internet fans” that the post suggesting people just head outside rather than watching adult websites is still relevant.

That elicited a reply from the original user, who asked Roscomnadzor why it couldn’t “come up with something new?” The agency replied to ask whether it was possible to “enter the same river twice?”

That philosophical remark drew further mockery. The original user, Lyolya, said if the site hadn’t been blocked then the agency could “watch a few videos about that on Pornhub”; another replied to say “You can enter anything twice, you would know that if you hadn’t blocked Pornhub”.

It also retweeted a pots by another Russian user who said that he had followed the agency’s advice, and that as a result he was due to have his wedding soon.

But Pornhub itself has tweeted from its official account to the agency, in an attempt to win it around.

“If we gave give you a guys Pornhub Premium account, will you un ban Pornhub in Russia?” the account posted. The tweet was retweeted more than 2,000 times.

Both sites remain blocked.