Russian authorities have taken disciplinary action to significantly reduce the speed of Twitter’s service.
The Russian telecommunications, information technology and media supervisory agency said on the 10th local time that it took disciplinary action to slow down Twitter, and said that 100% of mobile devices and 50% of fixed devices were subject to this measure.
The Supervisory Authority explained that Twitter has taken the same disciplinary action since 2017 for failing to comply with orders to remove content, child pornography, and drug information that promotes extreme choices by minors.
Deputy Supervisory Commissioner Vadim Subotin pointed out that Twitter is the only social media company that blatantly ignores requests from Russian authorities to remove banned content.
The Supervisory Authority said it had slowed down service speed and did not restrict text communication for only photo and video content, but warned that it could block service altogether if Twitter continues to not comply with the law.
The disciplinary action against Twitter was taken amid government criticism that some social media had not properly fulfilled a request from the authorities to delete messages calling for youth participation in protests calling for the release of Russian opposition activist Alexey Navalni.
The action on Twitter is also part of an attempt to control social media that the Russian government continues to strengthen.
In 2014, Russian authorities adopted a law requiring social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook to transfer personal information of Russian users to servers in Russia.
The two social media companies have been fined several times for failing to comply with this law.
The Supervisory Authority also said that the US search service company Google paid a fine of 3 million rubles or about 46 million won for not complying with the order to delete the banned information.
Google fined 700,000 rubles for violating the harmful content ban in 2019, but was fined 3 million rubles in a Russian court last December for violating the law again for not removing all such content.
(Photo = Getty Image Korea)