Twitter Agrees to Cooperate With Russian Blacklist

The St. Petersburg Times

Published: March 20, 2013 (Issue # 1751)

MOSCOW — The popular microblogging site Twitter has agreed to block access to accounts or posts that have been blacklisted by Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision in Telecommunications, Information Technology and Mass Communications, a statement posted on the watchdog’s website said last Friday. 

Since early March, the administration of the microblogging site has “actively been engaged in cooperation” with the information watchdog, already deleting one user’s account and restricting access in Russia to “five information materials” at the request of the information watchdog, the statement said. 

“Two of the materials, according to experts’ conclusions, [were restricted] for assisting the distribution of narcotics, and three others — for promoting suicidal thoughts.

Another account was deleted for advertising a network for the distribution of drugs. The service was notified of this today,” the statement said.

The statement also noted that negotiations had been under way with the social platform for some time now, but were complicated by the social network’s “management’s lack of practice in interacting with foreign authorities in respect of removing or restricting illegal content.”

According to Izvestia, the negotiations began last November, immediately after a controversial law prohibiting the distribution of certain materials was passed to protect children.

“The management’s constructive attitude has now allowed us to formulate a mutually acceptable scheme for interaction, allowing for the further processing of information from the register in acceptable terms for the Russian side,” the watchdog’s press service said.

The microblogging site identifies Russian users by IP address and restricts access for those users to materials contained on the watchdog’s blacklist.