World of Tanks may provoke suicide? Russian media watchdog probes popular game

Russian media watchdog Roskomnadzor, which has recently banned the Pornhub adult website and threatened to banish Wikipedia and Reddit, has found no unlawful data in the forum for the popular online game World of Tanks.

“According to the results of the analysis, the forum page of the World of Tanks (WoT) does not contain any illegal information. The application for the entry into the register (of forbidden websites) is rejected,” Roskomnadzor said on its Facebook page.

Earlier, the watchdog announced that it had received a request to look into one of the massively popular online game’s forum pages.

“According to the plaintiff, one of the forum’s pages has information on methods of committing suicide. We are analyzing the content to determine whether it contains illegal information,” it said.

World of Tanks is one of the world’s most popular online games, which sees players controlling 20th century combat vehicles.

Last year, the games developer Belarusian-Cypriot company, Wargaming, claimed that it has over 100 million registered users, without specifying how many of them active players.

Last year, the game’s developer, Belarusian-Cypriot company Wargaming, claimed that it had over 100 million registered users, without specifying how many of them active players.

Roskomnadzor caused quite a stir earlier in September when it banned the Russian-language version of Pornhub and 10 other websites on the grounds that they were deemed harmful to minors. "Go and make friends in real life instead of watching X-rated films,” it stated.

READ MORE: Don’t watch porn, ‘make real friends’ instead, Russian media watchdog tells female activist

In August, it briefly banned the Russian-language version of Wikipedia over an entry about cannabis that a court earlier ruled contained illegal information. The ban was lifted just a few hours later, and Roskomnadzor said the Wikipedia article in question had been edited to comply with regulations.

Also in August, Roskomnadzor warned that news story-sharing site Reddit may also be blocked by some internet providers in the country over a thread about “growing drug-containing plants.”