Russia’s communications authority, Roskomnadzor, has announced that it is slowing access to Twitter in the country, citing that the social media platform failed to remove content that it deems illegal.
As Reuters reported earlier this week, this is not the first time that the authority has taken action against tech firms or social media platforms, with it recently suing Facebook, Google and Twitter for not removing content related to a protest in support of Alexei Navalny, who has been a vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin.
Filtering the Roskomnadzor announcement through Google Translate, it has explained its decision by citing failures on Twitter’s part from as far back as 2017.
“Due to the fact that the Twitter online service in the period from 2017 to the present does not remove content that incites minors to commit suicide, containing child pornography, as well as information about the use of drugs, Roskomnadzor sent over 28 thousand initial and repeated requests on the removal of illegal links and publications,” it says.
“As of March 10, 2021, 3168 materials with prohibited information (including 2569 with calls to commit suicide by minors, 450 with child pornography, 149 with information on drug use) remain not deleted. The latest vivid example was the demonstrative disregard of the requirements of the regulator (unlike other social networks, Twitter did not delete the materials) to remove calls to minors to commit mass suicide on March 3, 2021 (recall that on this day, according to law enforcement agencies, several attempts were prevented committing suicide by minors),” the announcement adds.
At the time of writing, Twitter has not officially commented on the announcement and whether it will contest some of the allegations made against the company.
Roskomnadzor says it will implement its Twitter slow down on all mobile devices and 50 percent of non-mobile ones, namely PCs. It has also threatened to block access completely to the platform should Twitter continue to be non-compliant with its laws.
[Image – Photo by Akshar Dave on Unsplash ]
