Putin vows to take down Twitter: Service will be blocked in Russia in 30 days if it does not delete 'banned content' related to porn, suicide and Alexis Navalny protests
Russia has threatened to block Twitter within 30 days unless the site acts to remove what the government refers to as 'banned content'.
Vadim
Subbotin, deputy head of watchdog Roskomnadzor, said on Tuesday that
the ban would come into effect unless Twitter removed the content, which
he said includes child porn and information on child suicide and drugs.
But
critics say the crackdown is actually an attempt to stop Putin's
political opponents organising rallies, as they did in a number of
cities earlier this year.
Twitter is not reacting to our requests as
they should. If the situation carries on then it will be blocked in a
month without a court order,' Subbotin said.
It
comes a week after Subbotin announced that Twitter's internet speed
would be slowed down unless it removed the offending content.
Meanwhile
Twitter is also being sued in Russia for allegedly failing to delete
material encouraging children to join anti-Putin protests.
Twitter
said at the time that it was worried about the impact on free speech
despite Russian laws specifically outlawing children attending
protests.
Russia has also railed
against social media sites for censoring state-controlled media such as
RT, which have been branded propaganda sites by foreign governments.
Back
in January, Putin personally accused social media giants in January of
'controlling society' and 'restricting the right to freely express
viewpoints.'
Around 9million Russians
are thought to use Twitter, just eight per cent of the country's total
population, though it is the favoured means of communication for Putin's
critics including the likes of Navalny.
