Platform still not compliant with Russian law, Putin’s spokesman says
Any proposal to lift Russia’s ban on Twitter is a matter for the national media regulator, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. A senior official of the State Duma’s information policy committee recently proposed lifting the restrictions on the platform.
MP Anton Gorelkin has suggested that the ban on Twitter, imposed more than a year ago, could be lifted after a recent policy change by the social media giant. Twitter stopped hiding posts from official Russian accounts in its search results and added tags to Western state-affiliated news outlets, Gorelkin noted.
Even so, Peskov expressed skepticism about the removal of restrictions on Twitter in Russia during his comments on Tuesday.
“The competent agency, Roskomnadzor, is the competent party in this matter. It will decide whether its conditions are met. So far, there is a lot of material that does not meet the requirements, ” said the Kremlin spokesman.
Roskomnadzor expressed a similar sentiment on Monday, saying he had a list of around 1,300 Twitter posts that violate Russian law.
The regulator banned Twitter in early March 2022 at the request of the public prosecutor’s office. The platform has been accused of discriminating against Russian media and failing to spread police disinformation about Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.
Earlier, Roskomnadzor said Twitter failed to remove content banned in Russia, such as child pornography, advice on drug use and calls for illegal acts.
On Sunday, Twitter CEO Elon Musk was accused of “not respecting the sanctions” for its refusal to crack down on the account of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Musk argued in response that “all news is to some extent propaganda” and claimed he had been told that Russian President Vladimir Putin “Call me a war criminal for helping Ukraine, so he’s not exactly my best friend.”
Peskov was asked to comment on this particular accusation, responding that the billionaire must have been “misinformed” and that the Russian leader had never made remarks of this nature.
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