get this; Russia’s watchdog is planning on banning twitter in a month (now even closer) if they don’t do anything about their illegal content in their platform. and now their ISPs are throttling twitter’s traffic to make it unusable.
Illegal content I mean, well… Illegal content. just go to the shady part of the internet and you’ll know what I mean. don’t actually do this
" On March 10th, 2021, the wave of new users started rushing into the Russian constellation of the Fediverse. Hundreds of people were displaced by the measures Russian state communication commission (“Roscomnadzor”) has taken against the microblogging website Twitter, after their failure to comply with the order to remove the unspecified “Illegan Material”. Under the sacntions, the Russian Internet service providers must throttle the traffic in order to make the service unusable, and further default on the Twitter’s side will lead to a full and complete blocking of the website on the Russian soil. " source
this was happening because Russia’s media watchdog announced it was launching an “initial slowdown” at the same day. twitter seems like they don’t even care. read the articles below. I don’t really know why they’re doing this, but I’m not complaining.
Twitter’s response; “We are concerned about free speech”
On Wednesday, Russia began throttling Twitter as a way of pressuring the San Francisco-based company to remove over 3,100 posts found to be in violation of Russian law. Specifically, this includes 450 instances of child pornograpy and more than 2500 incitements to underage suicide.
Twitter responded by saying it was “deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public”
I can’t tell whether that’s a joke or not. they can’t be serious. what are they protecting really? I’m baffled here. that wasn’t really a smart move now is it. you have to read this;
Russia Blasts Twitter For Being “Too Slow” In Deleting Content “Harmful For Children”
mind you they were deleting those illegal content. but really, really, really, slowly. source It’s kind of a bit shady from twitter here. It’s only about 3,000 post requested to be removed. but why can’t they just remove it? It’s very questionable as far as this action speaks. why are they protecting those **** and **** posts. there is no reason to do this.
sources;
spoiler
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/517771-twitter-censorship-russia-illegal-content/
https://mastodon.online/web/statuses/105924846376829882
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/russia-threatens-block-twitter-month-76488991
https://tass.com/economy/1269283
https://news.yahoo.com/russia-chides-twitter-slow-deletion-114842231.html?
.
that’s it for today. this is really getting to me, I mean. It’s really funny though. the only thing I learn from diving into this rabbit hole is Twitter is really dumb. and yeah… have a great day everyone.
legally speaking, you don’t have a reason to shut down servers that doesn’t do it, only the servers that has illegal content.
Fediverse platforms like mastodon already has a list of blacklisted servers, if they want to shut us down, they don’t have much reason to do so, because unlike twitter, mastodon can just tell the Russian watchdogs to block certain instances from a list. and the russians could run instances on their own with their own rules. (i.e. rules that complies with russian law. also russian laws aren’t that different from US when it comes to prohibited content)
if the russians realize not one geopolitical entity has control over it, the one who controls it are just different people from around the world. why would they ever do such thing?
the lawfulness of content is not the issue here, they don’t care really, only using it as a somewhat legitimate excuse to shut down platforms that are used by their political opponents
you can set up a mastodon instance with the strictest moderation possible checking every post against every law, but if you get significant traction with political opposition, you will get noticed and they will try to shut you down, regardless of legality of content there
they can always just appeal to one of the many very broad laws regarding content on the internet, or if for whatever reason that doesn’t work just pass a brand new law specifically for that, as they control the majority in the state duma (a law making organ)
not in the case of twitter though, they’ve been asking to remove those 3,000 (2,862) posts since 2017, just now they’re finally taking action. I don’t think russia is doing as bad as anyone else say they are.
banning illegal content and getting rid of undesirable platforms is an intertwined effort for them
i’m not saying that twitter is innocent of course here, but giving the benefit of doubt to roskomnadzor and the russian government in general is the last thing i would do, especially given their track record regarding internet censorship…
if anything I hope, they won’t do anything as stupid as making mastodon illegal because some instances has ‘illegal content’. we can celebrate this one for now.
they don’t have that excuse this time around, no one owns the fediverse.
Well (illegal content) could be defined differently by different governments.
IMO hammering twitter to delete C.P (that could even be planted by russian fake accounts) is just the beginning and not the end goal.