Russia Blocked Twitter

Russia has blocked Twitter as it continues its invasion of Ukraine. In Russia, Twitter has the most users (31.1 million messages per month), followed by Odnoklassniki (88.5 million m/month), Instagram (135.1 million m/month), and Vkontakte (408.8 million m/month).

Today, February 26, NetBlocks, a global internet monitoring service, verifies that Russia began restricting Twitter access on the morning of February 26th, 2022. “The bans apply to numerous providers and come as Russian authorities and social media sites dispute over platform rules related to the crisis with Ukraine,” NetBlocks stated in an article.

Previously, Twitter halted ads in Russia and Ukraine to prevent disinformation from spreading on the network. Twitter has also limited the number of tweet recommendations from accounts that users do not follow that appear on their profile.

Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications authority, accused Facebook of violating “the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.” Facebook stated that it will not discontinue fact-checking and labelling information from state-owned news outlets. However, NetBlocks confirmed that Facebook and Instagram are operational normally.

According to the NetBlocks chart, all major Internet Service Providers restrict Twitter access. Roskomnadzor, Russia’s telecoms regulator, issued a statement on Friday prohibiting Russian news outlets’ advertising on Facebook.

Users can still circumvent the censorship by utilising a VPN (Virtual Private Network).