Well, that's just sad. GitHub just became a hostage of Russian authorities.
Roskomnadzor (RKN) is an organ directly controlled by Government of Russian Federation. Its decisions are "autonomous" in a sense they do not depend on decisions of a court. They - or their supervisors - can freely decide what information in the web is legal and what is not, on the basis of the Federal Law of July 27, 2006 № 149-FZ "On Information, Information Technology and Information Security".
The law broadly defines exactly three areas of harmful and therefore illegal content:
- child porn;
- info on makng narcotics;
- descriptions of methods of commiting suicide.