MOSCOW (AP) – Russian authorities said on Tuesday that they would block Twitter in a month if it did not take steps to remove banned content, a move that undermines the Russian government’s unconditional opposition to social media platforms. role played, increased. to strengthen disagreement in Russia.
The Russian state communications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, announced last week it has slowed the speed of uploading photos and videos to Twitter due to the alleged failure to remove content that encourages suicide among children and information about drugs and child pornography.
The agency said Twitter had managed to remove no more than 3,000 banned content posts, including more than 2,500 posts encouraging suicide among minors. The platform responded by emphasizing its policy of no tolerance for sexual exploitation of children, the promotion of suicide and drug trafficking.
On Tuesday, Roskomnadzor deputy head Vadim Subbotin argued that Twitter still did not meet the demands of the Russian authorities.
“Twitter is not responding appropriately to our requests, and if things continue like this, it will be blocked out of court within a month,” Subbotin told the Interfax news agency. He added that at this stage Roskomnadzor “does not register specific steps by Twitter to remove prohibited content.”
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Authorities have criticized social media platforms used this year to bring tens of thousands of people into the streets across Russia to release the prisoner, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The wave of demonstrations was the largest in years and posed a major challenge to the Kremlin.
According to authorities, social media platforms did not remove the calls for children to participate in the protests. Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged police to take more action to monitor social platforms and track down those who ‘drag the children into illegal and unsanctioned street actions’.
The government’s efforts to tighten control over the internet and social media date back to 2012, when a law was passed that allows authorities to blacklist and block certain online content. Since then, an increasing number of restrictions have been imposed on messages, websites and social media platforms.
In 2014, authorities passed a law requiring online services to store the personal data of Russian users on servers in Russia and have since tried to get Facebook and Twitter to comply. Both companies were repeatedly fined, first small amounts of about $ 50 and last year equaling $ 63,000 each, because they did not comply.
The government has repeatedly made threats to block the two giants on social media, but has not stopped the real ban, although the law allows it, for fear that the move would provoke too much public outrage. Only the social network LinkedIn, which was not very popular in Russia, was banned by the authorities due to the failure to store user data in Russia.
However, some experts said that the authorities would seriously consider the possibility of a ban this time.
Subbotin said on Tuesday that Roskomnadzor had the necessary “technical capabilities” to block Twitter, and that the agency did not rule out slowing down or blocking other online platforms if it “violated Russian laws and did not comply with Roskomnadzor’s demands.”
In 2018, Roskomnadzor could not restrict access to the popular messaging program Telegram because he refused to hand over encryption keys used to delete messages. Last year, the watchdog officially withdrew the demands to block Telegram, despite the ban, including by government institutions.
___
Associated Press authors Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Kelvin Chan in London contributed to this report.