Earlier this month, the Kremlin issued an ultimatum to Twitter: Ban content we dislike or we’ll ban you. Labeled a “tool of global digital diktat in the hands of the Western establishment” by the Russian Foreign Ministry, Twitter was given one month to respond. As Twitter head Jack Dorsey and others mull Russian President Vladimir Putin’s latest authoritarian demand, the company should remember that the Kremlin has more to lose than Twitter. Moscow may not have the capacity to enforce its tough line even if it tries, and if it does try, it risks adding another catalyst to growing discontent among the country’s youth.
Russia’s latest efforts at censorship comes three months after Putin signed legislation allowing Russia to restrict social media platforms to protect the country’s “digital sovereignty.” The new laws allow Russia to impose fines on platforms that fail to block forbidden content, nominally meaning posts it deems to promote suicide, child pornography, or the purchase of illegal drugs online. Political activists and human rights advocates, however, suspect that Putin’s recent necessary censorship on behalf of “the moral laws of our society” is actually intended to silence protest and opposition.
