In Russia, Twitter "slowed down" and threatened with blockage

The Russian authorities have increased criticism of Americans on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in recent weeks, but also of Chinese Tik Tok, denouncing their omnipotence.

Olivier DOULIERY AFP / File

Text by: RFI Follow

2 min

Russia has decided to "slow down" the functioning of Twitter to force the social network to delete several thousand messages.

It is a "warning" that could be followed by a complete blockage, warn the country's regulatory authorities.  

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With our correspondent in Moscow

,

Daniel Vallot

These are contents of a child pornography or defending drugs or suicide that are questioned by the Russian authorities.

Roskomnadzor, the agency responsible for regulating the Internet in Russia, says Twitter has refused to delete more than 3,000 such messages.

Initially, it is by slowing down the loading speed of photos and videos that the regulatory authority wants to punish Twitter.

But it threatens to completely block the network, if it continues " 

to ignore the requirements of the law 

."

For now, the measure taken by the Russian authorities has had little effect on Twitter: some users in Russia see no change, others a delay of a few seconds at most.

Failure against Telegram

However, since this morning, access to several government sites has been severely disrupted, including that of the Kremlin, the Russian Prime Minister and Roskomnadzor.

"

 Nothing to do with the measures taken against Twitter

 ", assures the regulatory authority which calls into question technical problems related to Rostelecom, main operator of the Russian Internet.

In 2018, an attempt to block Telegram messaging ended in total fiasco for the Russian authorities, who were finally forced to give it up.

The main effect of the attempt was to block the use of a large number of websites that had nothing to do with Telegram.  

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