According to Reuters, Russia has threatened to block Twitter in one month unless it doesn’t delete banned content. The Russia’s State Communications watchdog Roskomnadzor, Vadim Subbotin issued the warning a week after Russia slowed down the Twitter’s speed. The new threat follows a week of increasingly heightened tensions between Russia and Twitter.
It should be noted that on March 9, Twitter was sued by Russian authorities over the issue that it failed to delete posts that pushed children to participate in the apparently illegal protests that are ongoing over the jailing of Alexey Navalny, critic of the current Russian President Vladimir Putin. The next day, Russian regulatory authorities throttled the speed of Twitter as it didn’t comply in the demand to ban the content. Interestingly enough, the Russian authorities didn’t cite the protest as a reason but cited other problematic content like child pornography, drug use and tweets that encouraged Russian children to attempt suicides. It should also be noted that the throttling also came with a vague warning of a temporary Twitter ban.
The social media giant issued a statement after the Russian authorities slowed its platform down and said, “We have a zero-tolerance policy regarding child sexual exploitation, it is against the Twitter Rules to promote, glorify or encourage suicide and self-harm, and we do not allow the use of Twitter for any unlawful behavior or to further illegal activities, including the buying and selling of drugs. We remain committed to advocating for the Open Internet around the world and deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public conversation.”
On Tuesday, the Russian authorities came forward with a more direct warning. As reported by Reuters, Vlamdin Subbotin said, “Twitter is not reacting to our requests as they should. If the situation carries on then it will be blocked in a month without a court order.” Vlamdin accused Twitter of not taking down 3,000 plus posts that contained content which were related to drugs, child pornography and increasing suicide rates among minors.
Russia’s decision of throttling Twitter speeds came after Russia sued Twitter and other major social media platforms regarding certain posts which expressed support for President Putin’s critic and opposition Alexey Navalny who is currently detained. Russia claimed that the tweets should have been deleted and thus sued Twitter. Russian Internet rights advocacy organization Roskomsvoboda labelled the government’s concerns about Russian youth’s morality as “nothing more than just a cover”.
Artem Kozlyuk of Roskomsvoboda spoke to VOA news and said, “The real goal is to force western social media companies to limit access to political content — anything to do with calling people out to protest or visit an opposition website. If Twitter or any of the other companies complied, they’d find the objections of the Russian authorities suddenly disappear.”
Earlier this month, even Russian President Putin warned Twitter and other social media platforms against the unacceptable content they have been letting people post. Putin said that these platforms are being used to distribute child pornography, prostitution, for driving minors to the point of killing themselves. Putin also warned saying the Russian authorities will be forced to take action against these platforms who “try to take advantage of children in cold blood [to] achieve their own selfish, ‘ferret’ goals.”
It should be noted that after Russia slowed down Twitter, several Russian government websites, including Kremlin’s website-were down. The Russian Ministry of Digital Development later issued a statement saying that the problems had nothing to do with Twitter but arose due to some technical issues.
Twitter, which has in the past gone as far as to ban the United States of America former President Donald Trump, has also been slammed for “biased attitude”. Recently the company was in the news when it failed to comply with content removal orders by Indian government. When it did however comply with the government orders, and banned several hundred accounts that spoke about the Farmer’s Protest, it received criticism from the masses for taking such step and curbing free speech.
