Russia and the internet

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - Report 29 Mar 2021 by Alex Teddy and Alexei Panin

On March 10 Russia slowed down Twitter for several hours. The aim was to penalize Twitter for failing to remove prohibited content. Putin is keenly alive to the importance of controlling the media. Information warfare is being used more and more by governments, and the keyboard is apparently mightier than the sword in many countries these days.

The Kremlin has long hankered after a sovereign internet like China has. Andrei Lipov, who is in charge of the government’s internet policy, attempted this by slowing Twitter on March 10. However, slowing Twitter had unforeseen consequences. Some government websites crashed. The slowdown of Twitter occurred on all mobiles and on 50% of stationary computers. Photos and videos were slowed but tweets were not.

The sovereign internet has failed its first major test. Moscow wanted to fire a shot across the bows of Twitter and other social media platforms but it has arguably shot itself in the foot. The president is surely not satisfied with the result.

Now read on...

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