Russian internet watchdog decides not to block Twitter

Russian internet watchdog Roskomnadzor has decided not to block Twitter after the US company deleted over 90% of the material the state organ had objected to, the organ said in a press release on May 15. Roskomnadzor said it had “positively assessed” Twitter’s efforts to comply with Russian law, which prohibits the publication material including child pornography, drug use and instructions on how to commit suicide that it accused Twitter of hosting. After the initial warning that the service could be blocked, Roskomnadzor narrowed the bandwidth available to Twitter in Russia from March 10 after the company refused to comply. Although that had little effect on the speed that short text messages can be transmitted, it did slow the download of pictures and video, users reported. The watchdog had threatened to fully block the site on May 15 if Twitter had not made substantial progress in deleting the offending posts. The state censor has now decided that such a move is unnecessary and the US company has largely complied with the requests. According to RKN, over 91% of the posts have been removed. The agency will thus return normal service to Twitter on computers, but it will continue to slow…
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