Twitter has a restricted content from over 300 Russian government official accounts, including that of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The accounts will not be suggested in timelines, notifications, or anywhere else on the website, Twitter said.
The company stated that it will be able to take action against any country that “restricts users from accessing the public internet when they’re involved in an armed conflict”.
At present, Putin is using two accounts for official purposes on this social media website One in Russian and the other in English. These accounts have 3.6 million followers and 1.7 million followers, respectively.
Twitter claimed that the decision to allow Russian government officials to share their posts freely on the website, but restricting the use of the site in Russia “creates an unintentional inequity of data”.
In the wake of Tuesday’s decision the content of the more than 300 official official Government accounts won’t not get “recommended or amplified”. The powerful algorithm of Twitter will not be promoting these accounts.
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These targeted Russian government accounts comprise official ministry and embassy profiles as well as accounts of the highest-ranking Russian officials.
They have previously been criticized for spreading false information during the Ukraine conflict, however unlike tweets posted by Russian state-owned media, they’ve never been restricted to a specific moderation process by Twitter.
On the 10th of March, The Russian Embassy in Britain’s official account stated that the attack on an maternity hospital in Mariupol in the Ukrainian town of Mariupol was faked.
The claim was untrue. Twitter deleted tweets that made the “FAKE” claim.
In contrast, Twitter says that it is Russia’s actions in Ukraine in conjunction with the decision of the country to block and restrict social media platforms in its domestic market which has caused their actions.
“When a country that is engaged in conflict with armed forces is preventing or restricting access to internet-based services within their own country and they continue to utilize those platforms to further their position and opinions – it causes a dangerous imbalance in information” According to Yoel Roth, the Head of the Site Integrity for Site Integrity at Twitter.
Twitter affirms that it is applying the rules to all countries which restricts access to online services during conflict between states. However, the regulations, that went into effect on Tuesday, initially, only affected Russian government accounts.
It’s not ‘tit-for-tat’
While Twitter isn’t prohibited in Russia The website has already been slow down to the point of not being able to connect.
But, Twitter says its action was not in retaliation.
“To be explicit, this isn’t an “tit-for-tat” policy, in which the moment one blocks Twitter then you are reduced in the power of Twitter and this is applicable regardless of regardless of whether Twitter has been blocked, or is not” explained Mr. Roth.
He said Twitter will be taking action against images of prisoners of war, which has been uploaded by state-affiliated or government-owned media outlets.
“If we come across media issued by state or government media accounts featuring soldiers in war, or when the war prisoner is suffering from ill-treatment or other forms of ridicule, humiliation, or violence and we demand the removal of these tweets” said the official.
Twitter “de-amplified” Russian state media on its platform, for example, Russia Today as well as Sputnik on February 28th 4 days after the war in Ukraine began. The company has previously told BBC that the decision resulted in an “30 percent decrease in the audience reach of this type of content”.
But the decision was not implemented by the accounts of the official Russian account of the government.
In a statement last this month Tim Graham, a social media analyst at the QUT Digital Media Research Centre in Australia said it was an “loophole” in the moderation policies of Twitter.
“It’s definitely a blind spot in Twitter’s defenses against disinformation,” he said.
