Russia blocks popular porn sites, asks citizens to 'meet people in real life'

Moscow: In a move to boost social interaction among its citizens, Russia has blocked most watched pornographic websites YouPorn and Pornhub.

The websites were blocked by the Russian state watchdog Roskomnadzor, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. The agency is in charge of monitoring and blocking access to those websites that the government does not want citizens to use.

According to a report in the Independent, Pornhub and YouPorn were blocked by the Russian authorities on Tuesday. However, this is not the first time that the country has blocked porn websites.

But, ever since these sites have been blocked, citizens have been flooding the authority's official Twitter account with queries and requests asking them to provide an alternative.

One such user named Lyolya tweeted to the authorities asking them to provide an alternative to these porn sites. The agency replied to her tweet saying, “Dear Lyolya, as an alternative you can meet someone in real life."

Another user asked Roscomnadzor why they could not come up with something new, to which they replied, "Is it possible to enter the same river twice?" This tweet was further mocked by another user who wrote, "You can enter anything twice, you would know that if you hadn’t blocked Pornhub."

Meanwhile, Pornhub has been trying to get its website unblocked. It has tweeted from its official account requesting authorities to unblock it. The tweet read, “If we gave give you a guys Pornhub Premium account, will you un-ban Pornhub in Russia?”.

The tweet has since then been re-tweeted more than 2,000 times.

However, YouPorn and Pornhub, both remain blocked in the country.