On March 16 Russia’s Internet watchdog Roskomnadzor (RKN) stated that it is ready to impose a full blocking on Twitter in Russia within one month should it fail to comply with online content takedown laws.
This follows RKN’s earlier decision to start throttling the loading speed for Twitter from March 10th in order to punish the company for what it claims had been “malicious and consistent non-compliance” with Russian legislation.
The move, exercised by RKN under the guidance of the Presidential Administration, was substantiated by a significant number of content takedown requests from 2017 onwards (approx. 3000 – most of them related to illegal content), which RKN says Twitter has ignored.
To learn the legal grounds and technical reasons behind the throttling, as well as what does Twitter’s case mean for other platforms and Russia’s Internet policy in general, please follow this link to read the opinion of Kesarev Senior Counsel Yury Shikhov.
