Well, business consultants would know a lot about the legal angle - especially consultants that are all over IT.
And one part of your first sentence does explain it - If a government does care about what happens to it's people, it should deal with drug dealers. That's exactly what Roscomnadzor did. They have the right to block sites without a court ruling and they used that to block the "magic mushroom growing guide" by blocking Reddit.
When Reddit complied with their demands, Reddit was restored.
Russia blocked & unblocked Reddit
Btw, Freedom of Speech can be tunnel vision. For example, do Bradley Manning, Snowden, and Assange have Freedom of Speech? Well, Snowden does but only because he's in Russia. If he was in the US he would be in prison.
So no, I won't always respond to the "Freedom of Speech" card when somebody pulls it.
Also, anyone that reads the Russian news knows that Russia is having a serious problem with drugs. So I wasn't very surprised when I read the first article about banning Reddit. Drugs have been causing a lot of deaths.