Russia says it is slowing down Twitter for not removing 3K+ posts containing “illegal content” and threatens a total block if Twitter ignores deletion demands
Reuters
Context & Ripple Effects
This move is an escalation of a pressure campaign that began in 2019 administrative action against Facebook and Twitter over data-localization compliance — the regulator shifted from demanding paperwork to directly degrading service. By throttling Twitter rather than banning it outright, Roskomnadzor keeps leverage in hand while talks continue.
Russian users on Twitter face degraded access immediately, and Twitter must choose between mass deletions of content Roskomnadzor deems illegal or a total block of its largest remaining growth lever in the country.
Second-order effects
The demonstrated success against Twitter gives Roskomnadzor a reusable template — Google is next in line with a 24-hour deletion ultimatum and traffic slowdowns, and other platforms operating in Russia face the same choice between local censorship compliance and market exit.
Third-order effects
Throttling replaces outright bans as the preferred enforcement tool: it is reversible, deniable, and lets the state extract incremental compliance from each platform without triggering the user backlash a hard block would — normalizing state-tunable internet speed as a content-control instrument that other governments can copy.
The trend: Russia is converting platform access into a bargaining chip, ratcheting from data-localization disputes to throttling-as-enforcement across every major Western social network still operating in the country.
Today's outages in Russia appears to have been caused by a bad substring match by @roscomnadzor. Intending to block Twitter's link shortener t[.]co, Russia blocked all domains containing t[.]co, for example Microsoft[.]com and Reddit[.]com. (H/T @GregoryKhodyrev) https://twitter.…
Russia's attempt to slow internet access to @twitter backfired today, knocking out mobile internet for many Russians. #KeepitOn @kentikinc netflow data shows two periods when traffic dropped by as much as 24% to RU state telecom Rostelecom starting 07:00UTC (10:00am local). https…
Amazing, unbelievable incompetence by Russia's official internet censor. They intended to block Twitter's link shortener. Instead, they accidentally blocked every single .com site that ends with a “T.” https://twitter.com/...
Russia's FCC is reportedly slowing down access to Twitter, alleging that the platform hasn't done enough to combat child porn and drug-use content: https://www.nytimes.com/...
This raises an interesting potential scenario: What if, during a tense crisis, even an escalating conventional conflict, Russia took steps to limit Internet access but caused outage that it misinterpreted as a hostile cyberattack? https://twitter.com/...
“The Kremlin said there was no desire to block content but that companies had to abide by the law.” Hmm... where have I heard this before? https://www.reuters.com/...
For everyone who are ever struggled with regular expressions, it's heartwarming to see that Russia's internet censorship body can't get them right either. https://twitter.com/...
This is familiar from the earlier days of the Great Firewall in China, when mysterious blackouts would take out subsections of the internet as settings were adjusted. Here's one example from what feels like a different era: https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Perhaps this is why @navalny was so opposed to Twitter banning Trump. This is an extremely dangerous move by the Kremlin, and likely just the start. Twitter is not nearly as popular in Russia as YouTube, Telegram and TikTok. https://www.nytimes.com/...
The Russian government said on Wednesday that it was slowing down access to Twitter in the country, accusing the site of failing to remove illegal content. The move signals an escalation in the Kremlin's offensive against U.S. tech companies. https://www.nytimes.com/...
Russia says it will slow down Twitter's speed until it removes banned content. The social media platform is used by Kremlin critics, such as supporters of jailed opposition politician Alexei Navalny https://www.reuters.com/... https://twitter.com/...