Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Alexei Nikolsky | Reuters
Russia has announced that it is imposing restrictions on the social networking platform Twitter because it has not removed illegal content from its platform.
The Federal Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications Service, also known as Roskomnadzor, announced on Wednesday that it is slowing down Twitter.
The communications watchdog said it was taking steps to keep Russian citizens safe and could end up completely blocking the service if Twitter did not respond accordingly.
Twitter did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
Speeds will be reduced on all mobile devices and 50% of non-mobile devices, such as computers, Roskomnadzor said in a statement on its website.
Roskomnadzor accused Twitter of not removing content that encourages minors to commit suicide, as well as child pornography and drug use.
The regulator said it asked Twitter to remove links and posts more than 28,000 times between 2017 and March 2021. It said other social networks have cooperated more than Twitter in removing content that encourages minors to commit suicide.
Russia’s move to restrict Twitter follows similar actions by the governments of Turkey and India, which have also threatened jail for the platform’s executors.
Matt Navarra, a social media consultant, told CNBC that “the threat of restricting, blocking or banning social media platforms seems to be a growing trend for countries known for tougher and less democratic regimes.”
Social platforms are in a constant struggle to keep inappropriate content on their platforms. Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter all use a combination of software and human content moderators to control what is distributed on their platforms, but none of them have really mastered content moderation.
One of the most infamous recent examples was the shooter Christchurch, who broadcast his mass murder live on Facebook and other platforms. The video was quickly cloned and redistributed by other users faster than content moderators could remove it and it could be found on Facebook a few weeks after the attack.