Russia moved to slow down the speed of Twitter on Wednesday after the social media company failed to remove what the country’s media watchdog described as prohibited or harmful content.
The move comes after Russia vowed to act against social media platforms in the wake of protests in support of opposition figure Alexey Navalny. Officials warned they would take action against social media companies that didn’t filter posts about protests that the Kremlin deemed as illegal or inciting people to demonstrate.
“Starting today, Roskomnadzor has taken measures of centralized response, namely, slowing down the speed of the service. The slowdown will be implemented for 100% of mobile traffic and 50% of fixed traffic. The mechanism involves slowing down the transfer of photo and video content, without limiting transmission text messages. This way, users will be able to exchange messages without hindrance,” Vadim Subbotin, deputy head of the Roskomnadzor media watchdog, told journalists, according to state news agency TASS.