The Russian government has once again blocked Pornhub and YouPorn, two popular pornography websites. And once again the government is trolling angry porn addicts on Twitter, the Independent newspaper reported Thursday, this time making an allusion to a question posed by an ancient Greek philosopher.
Last September, when the Russian government first blocked the sites, a cheeky social-media officer for Roskomnadzor — the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media — answered a critic by saying he should try to meet a flesh and blood human being for a change.
“Dear Lyolya, as an alternative you can meet someone in real life,” the official account said on Twitter, answering a question for an alternative website the user could go to that met government approval.
Government censors apparently are thin on material, re-using the same quip in a recent admonition on Twitter to “internet fans” to get out and meet people.
“That elicited a reply from the original user, who asked Roscomnadzor why it couldn’t ’come up with something new?’ The agency replied to ask whether it was possible to ’enter the same river twice?’” noted the Independent, which went on to quote a few double entendre-laced quips in return.
The river allusion harkens back to Heraclitus, a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who, as quoted by Plato, famously concluded “You could not step twice into the same river.”
It remains to be seen if Russian censors will move on to Plato’s allegory of the cave anytime soon, an allusion which assuredly would also engender a round of double entendre-laced replies by porn-starved Russians.
• Ken Shepherd can be reached at kshepherd@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.