MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Monday it would extend a punitive Twitter slowdown until May 15, although it acknowledged that the US social media company had accelerated the removal of what Moscow calls banned content.
Traditionally, Moscow has taken on a more unforeseen role in Internet surveillance than neighboring China. But as friction has grown this year over the arrest and imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, he has pointed to a tougher line.
Russia has been blocking the speed of Twitter since March for not deleting content it deems illegal and has threatened to block it altogether. Some users take longer to upload photos and videos.
However, in a statement on Monday, Roskomnadzor, a state communications watchdog, said Twitter had held talks with Russian authorities on April 1, which led to an agreement to give it more time and a recognition that banned content was being removed more quickly.
Twitter confirmed the talks with Russia.
“It was a productive discussion about how we can both work to ensure that reports of this illegal content are dealt with quickly,” he said in a statement.
Roskomnadzor said that, on average, Twitter removed illegal content within 81 hours of receiving a request. This is still much longer than the 24 hours required by law.
Russian authorities have accused Twitter and others this year of not deleting posts that Moscow said illegally urged children to take part in protests against the Kremlin.
Roskomnadzor says he wants Twitter to remove content that includes child pornography, information about drug abuse, or calls for minors to commit suicide.
Twitter denies using its platform to promote illegal behaviors, says it has a zero-tolerance policy for child sexual exploitation, and prohibits the promotion of suicide or self-harm.
After Russia announced the measure to curb traffic, Twitter said it was concerned about the impact on free speech.
Russia tried, but was unable to block the popular messaging app Telegram in 2018.
Roskomnadzor has not said how Twitter is slowing down, but proponents of Internet freedom say it probably involves traffic control and deep packet inspection (DPI), a form of data processing that can block and redirect certain traffic to Internet.
Leonid Evdokimov, a technical expert for Roskomsvoboda, a group that controls Internet freedom in Russia, said authorities seemed more technically capable and that their threat to block Twitter was probably more realistic.
Major social media companies have been embroiled in a growing number of disputes not only in Russia but around the world as governments try to curb their power.
Reports by Tom Balmforth, Maxim Rodionov and Alexander Marrow; Edited by Alison Williams, Andrew Cawthorne and Barbara Lewis