Deputies from all groups of the State Duma filed an appeal on Wednesday, April 12, to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov with a request to consider the possibility of unblocking Twitter in Russia. red blood cell.
The appeal was initiated by the New People group and was signed by 22 parliamentarians. They stated that they support the decision of the Russian authorities to restrict access to Facebook (the owner of Meta is recognized and banned in Russia as an extremist), Twitter and Instagram (the owner of Meta is considered and banned in Russia).
“At the same time, the policy of the social network Twitter has changed with the change of ownership,” says Metin.
According to lawmakers, the social network “stopped discriminating against state bodies and journalists of the Russian Federation” due to the “personal decision” of its new owner, Elon Musk. Examples include the refusal to delete the tweets of Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, and the hashtag “government-funded media” on the British broadcaster BBC’s page.
The appeal further states that “Twitter has removed bots that spread misinformation and has also issued a policy regarding violence, harassment, and terrorism.”
“If the policy of the social network is aimed at neutrality in terms of the dissemination of information, State Duma deputies consider it reasonable and justified to restart a fruitful dialogue with Twitter’s leadership and use the platform to communicate Russia’s position to Western audiences. , including government offices.
Unblocking Twitter will also allow Russian entrepreneurs and bloggers to attract a new audience, including foreigners, the authors said.
Deputies asked the Prosecutor General to recheck the social network for materials that violate the laws of the Russian Federation and draw the attention of the platform administration to them. The parliamentarians concluded that lifting restrictions on access to Twitter in Russia should be considered if they agreed to remove or tag them.
buy a social network
Elon Musk began buying Twitter shares on January 31, 2022, and the deal to sell the social network was finalized on October 28.
Elon Musk took over the company. CEO Parag Agrawal and CFO Ned Segal have stepped down from leadership of the platform.
“Twitter needs to be politically neutral in order to gain public trust, which essentially means upsetting the far-right and the far-left equally,” the entrepreneur said.
After the social network came under Musk’s control, mass layoffs began at the company. Also, the businessman began to actively reorganize the platform.
Access to Twitter in Russia has been restricted for over a year. Roskomnadzor explained such a step by “disseminating socially significant misinformation on the subject on the site. special military operation in Ukraine”.