The Wattpad logo on the App Store.

Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor is considering banning popular storytelling platform Wattpad in an ongoing crackdown on what the Russian government deems “LGBT propaganda”, its press service told state news agency TASS on Wednesday.

The watchdog claimed that some of the texts published on the platform contained “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations”, adding that Wattpad refused to delete 130 pages with “unlawful content” at Roskomnadzor’s request.

Should the platform continue to ignore the watchdog’s demands, Roskomnadzor will restrict access to the website, its press service continued.

A platform especially popular with teenagers and young adults, Wattpad allows its users to publish and read original fiction and fan fiction, with some of its stories, such as the After saga and The Kissing Booth, finding mainstream fame.

While most of the platform’s stories are written in English, it also has a Russian section, with over 1,200 stories published in the fanfiction genre.

In February, a Moscow court fined Wattpad 3.5 million rubles (€38,800) for refusing to delete “works about same-sex relations”, though it did not specify the works in question.

Russia’s continued censorship of LGBT content was prompted by legislation adopted in December 2022 providing for fines of up to 4 million rubles (€44,000) for disseminating so-called “LGBT propaganda”, as well as a Supreme Court ruling in November 2023 that branded the “international LGBT movement” an “extremist organisation”, effectively banning it and making LGBT activity punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

In April 2023, Russia blocked another major fanfiction archive, Archive of Our Own, which featured fanfiction written in multiple languages, reportedly after the platform refused to take down “pornographic stories written in Russian that involve teenagers”, while last summer, Russian authorities blocked Ficbook, one of Russia’s largest online fanfiction archives.