How the position of Elon Musk can affect the unblocking of Twitter in Russia

The proposal of Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Anton Gorelkin (United Russia) to unblock Twitter in Russia is unlikely to affect the lifting of restrictions, only a Russian court can determine their validity or invalidity, lawyers interviewed by Vedomosti say.

On April 10, 2023, Gorelkin took the initiative to consider the issue of unblocking Twitter in connection with the return of access to the accounts of Russian government officials and departments, taking into account the “new policy” of the leadership of the social network.

In March 2022, Twitter was blocked on the territory of the Russian Federation by decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office dated February 24 “due to the dissemination by the site of unreliable socially significant information on the subject of a special military operation in Ukraine.”

“If the social network is now aimed at neutrality, it is necessary to resume dialogue with it and continue to work within the framework of the legislation of the Russian Federation. And for our government departments, Twitter can again become a convenient platform to explain Russia’s position to Western audiences,” Gorelkin wrote in his Telegram channel.

A week earlier, the British newspaper The Telegraph drew attention to the fact that Twitter removed restrictions on the accounts of Russian politicians and departments, introduced back in April 2022 under the previous owner of the social network. American billionaire Elon Musk bought Twitter in October 2022. He, in particular, declared the goal of “helping humanity” to organize an impartial platform for civilized discussions where people with opposite views could exchange opinions.

As of April 10, 2023, pages of blocked Russian users can be seen in Twitter recommendations. In particular, the pages of President Vladimir Putin, the Foreign Ministry and the Russian Embassy in London again became visible there, wrote The Telegraph.

In addition, on April 8, Musk refused to delete the tweet of Dmitry Medvedev, Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, in which he wrote that no one needs Ukraine, therefore it will disappear and will not be on the planet. The owner of Twitter explained his actions by saying that any news is propaganda, and people should choose the sources themselves. After that, some anti-Russian users criticized Musk for non-compliance with the sanctions regime against the Russian Federation and “allowing Russian leaders back on the platform.”

Russian restrictions affected Twitter long before the CBO and the blocking of Western social networks (for example, Meta, which owns the Facebook and Instagram social networks blocked in Russia and the WhatsApp messenger, was declared extremist for calling for violence against the Russian military and banned in the country).

Roskomnadzor (RKN) began slowing down Twitter in March 2021 for refusing to comply with the requirements of Russian law regarding the removal of prohibited content: publications with calls for suicide by minors, child pornography and information about the distribution of drugs. The degradation affected 100% of traffic within mobile networks and 50% of fixed-line traffic. But in May of the same year, restrictions for stationary devices were lifted after Twitter’s moderation services removed over 91% of prohibited posts, while restrictions for mobile devices continued to apply.

If we consider the situation from the point of view of law, then the statements of representatives of the legislature have no weight, Dmitry Kletochkin, partner at the law firm Rustam Kurmaev and Partners, draws attention. De jure, the only way any parliamentarians can lift the blocking is to propose amendments to federal legislation that would repeal the rules that provide the basis for imposing such restrictions, he believes. Moreover, such amendments should be of a “retroactive nature”, that is, apply to decisions taken in the past, but norms that have retroactive effect are exceptionally rare.

After Gorelkin’s proposal, Twitter is unlikely to be unblocked, Karan Ghazaryan, director of the Internet Research Institute, agrees. Now, according to him, a decision on unblocking by the Center for Monitoring and Control of the Public Communications Network (CMU SSOP) is enough. The center was established in accordance with the law on the sovereign runet, which provides for centralized traffic management using technical threat countermeasures installed on the networks of telecom operators.

“Blocking access to certain resources is carried out by the authorized executive body, that is, the RKN. The department acts in accordance with Articles 15.1 and 15.3 of the Federal Law “On Information” and restricts access either by a court decision or in a pre-trial order – for example, as in the case of Twitter, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office. Accordingly, only the RKN can also remove the restriction, either on the basis of a court decision confirming the groundlessness of the blocking, or in the event of elimination of the identified violations that led to the blocking,” Kletochkin said.

Vedomosti sent a request to Roskomnadzor.

In addition, Russian users do not lack information and communication thanks to popular domestic social services, the representative of the department added.

The decision to unblock may be affected by the fact that the company has changed its owner, and its position differs from the position of the previous owners, lawyer Pavel Katkov, member of the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Committee on Entrepreneurship in the Field of Media Communications, points out. This is not about the aggression of Twitter as a company, but about the information policy of the social network to suppress or reject certain types of comments. Perhaps now this policy has changed or at least become neutral, he admits.

Initially, the blocking was justified by the participation of the social network not only in the dissemination of false information, but also with calls for extremist activity, I suppose that it was because of this that difficulties could arise with the removal of restrictions, Kletochkin points out. In any case, the position of the decision-making centers will have significant weight when considering the removal of restrictions from Twitter, he concluded.