MOSCOW, June 23. /ITAR-TASS/. The accounts of Twitter users that spread extremist content may be soon deleted by the social network’s administration.

Alexander Zharov, head of Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications (Roskomnadzor) said this after a meeting with the company’s Vice-President Colin Crowell.

“I hope the content of some extremist blogs will be deleted. It does not matter where the blog has been registered. It is important that it is kept in a language that Russian residents understand. It concerns not only Russian users. Even if the account has been registered on the territory of Ukraine, this information would be considered extremist as well. The management of Twitter has heard us and I hope that these accounts will be deleted in the nearest time,” Zharov said.

 

How extremism is combated in Russia

In accordance with the federal legislation, the access to websites containing calls for extremism and mass riots is supposed to be restricted in Russia.

After receiving a corresponding request from the Prosecutor General’s Office, Roskomnadzor files a request with the telecom operators about restricting access to an information resource or to illegal content published on it.

Telecom operators, after receiving the request, shall immediately restrict the access to the named resource. Then, the watchdog determines the hosting provider of the website containing illegal information and sends a notification.

The provider, in its turn, shall inform the owner of the information resource about the need to delete the illegal content, and after that, the access to the resource would be restored.