Russian authorities appear to block Archive.today

Archive.today, a well-known archiving service and paywall bypass website, and several of its associated domains appear to have been blocked by Russian authorities. The restriction was observed on Monday when the websites appeared blocked during visits to the pages from the U.S. East Coast. Visitors attempting to load the platform’s websites were met with an error page written in Russian. The page stated, “Access to the Internet resource Blocked by decision of the public authorities,” citing Roskomnadzor, the Russian government agency responsible for internet censorship.

According to Roskomnadzor’s official listing for Archive.is, the agency confirmed that “access is limited to the page,” though it did not provide a specific reason for the restriction. A representative for Roskomnadzor did not immediately respond to inquiries outside of working hours in Moscow. Despite the apparent block, the full extent of the restriction and the specific entity responsible for implementing it remain unclear. The archiving service could still be accessed from various other devices and networks, and users were still able to archive web pages regardless of the apparent block.

This regulatory action follows a separate, recent controversy involving the archiving service and the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. Wikipedia editors recently decided to remove hundreds of thousands of links to Archive.today from the platform. The removal was initiated after Wikipedia editors reported that Archive.today’s code uses visitors’ web browsers to bombard the website of a blogger who was critical of Archive.today’s operations with junk network traffic. The operators behind Archive.today did not respond to requests for comment regarding either the block or the allegations.

Why it matters

This action represents a significant censorship move against a tool widely used to bypass paywalls, highlighting the ongoing tension between digital archiving tools and state-level internet controls.