Russia slows down Twitter in row over ‘illegal’ content

Russia has restricted the use of Twitter by slowing down its speed and threatened to block the service completely, after accusing the social media giant of repeatedly failing to remove banned content from its site.

Roskomnadzor, the country’s state communications watchdog, said there were more than 3,000 posts containing “illegal content” as of Wednesday.

Twitter, like other US social media, is used widely in Russia by allies and supporters of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, whose jailing last month led to nationwide protests.

"The slowing down will be applied on a 100 per cent of mobile devices and on 50 per cent of non-mobile devices," the regulator said in a statement on its website.