Approximately 1,700 websites have joined an online strike against the new anti-piracy legislation, which came into effect on Thursday, allowing pre-trial blocking of web-pages.
The sites front pages were changed and containing messages denouncing the law and links to the petition demanding to call off the legislation.
“All of your favorite websites, including Zaycev.net, may also be BLOCKED,” the text on the Zaycev.net music website front page said.
Russia’s largest e-mail provider, Mail.ru, didn’t close on the day, but also spoke out against the law. The website placed a banner on its index page, leading to a blog post, which reported its views on the issue.
“And now the ‘anti-piracy’ law comes into force. Today, we live in an online reality where every user became an information middleman and any page can be shut down for posting a link on the pirated content,” Mail.ru stated.
Also, a petition posted on the ROI.ru site gathered over 67,000 signatures in less than a month but is still short from the required 100,000 figure.
