Roskomnadzor partially lifts Twitter throttling and threatens Facebook and YouTube with restrictions

Roskomnadzor has decided to partially lift Twitter restrictions and has abandoned the idea of blocking the social network. The agency arrived at this decision following an audit of the company’s efforts to bring its activities into compliance with Russian law, as reported on Roskomnadzor’s Telegram channel.

On May 15, the period allotted to the company to remove materials prohibited on the territory of the Russian Federation expired. By that time, Twitter moderators had removed over 91% of the prohibited materials, the agency said.

“The Twitter leadership sent a letter to Roskomnadzor in which it confirmed that it fully shares the agency’s actions in the fight against socially dangerous content and will take all necessary measures to remove it,” Roskomnadzor said.

As a result the agency decided not to block the service in Russia, and to lift access restrictions in fixed networks and their associated Wi‑Fi connections. Throttling of Twitter traffic on mobile devices remains in place for now.

For a full removal of restrictions, Twitter must delete all prohibited materials.

Roskomnadzor also said that prohibited content was identified on other platforms, including Facebook and YouTube:

“If the specified platforms do not take appropriate measures, similar sanctions may be applied to them.”

Since March 10, Roskomnadzor began throttling Twitter’s traffic in Russia due to the platform’s refusal to delete content that the agency deemed illegal. The agency also threatened Twitter with a full block.

For refusing to delete the prohibited content, a Russian court fined Twitter 8.9 million rubles.

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