Russia Warns Twitter For Allegedly Failing To Remove Banned Contents

Russia has issued a firm warning against Twitter on March 10 because of its alleged failure to remove banned contents. The country wants the said social media site to take down posts related to abuses and self-harm.

The warning was also issued following the recent protests in Russia. It can be noted that the government told the platform to remove posts that call for people to participate in unsanctioned rallies.

Roskomnadzor, Russia's state media watchdog, said that Twitter has slowed down in all mobile devices in the country. Half of the non-mobile devices are also affected by the move.

Russia also threatened to totally block the platform if it continues to show banned contents to the public.

Many people consider the said action as the most serious measure that the Russian government has taken against the social media platform. ABC News stated in a report that the authorities of Russia have repeatedly asked Twitter to take down contents that are linked to protests.

On March 10, Twitter issued its response to the recent warning of Russia. It said that it is really worried because of the government's move to throttle online public conversation.

Twitter's spokesperson also mentioned that the platform does not allow anything that encourages abuses and self-harm to be posted and shown to the public.

Meanwhile, just after the warning was issued against Twitter, several government sites have become unresponsive. Even the site of the state media watchdog suddenly went down. This incident was reported by The Guardian.

The authorities immediately belied the speculation that the incident was related to the initiative of slowing down Twitter. They reasoned out that the incident was caused by a problem with a router at one of Russia's main telecommunications providers.

"It's a technical problem, we are reloading the software right now, things like this happen with programs," Rostelecom's president said.