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Media watchdog to decide on unblocking Twitter in Russia — Kremlin

Access to twitter.com was restricted in Russia by order of the Prosecutor General's Office dated February 24, 2022

MOSCOW, April 11. /TASS/. The decision to unblock Twitter in Russia is in the purview of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media but as of now, the social network still has a lot of materials that do not comply with Russia’s requirements, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS on Tuesday.

"This question should be addressed to the relevant agency - the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media. They will decide whether all the requirements have been met. Right now, there are still quite a few materials that aren’t up to snuff," the Kremlin official said.

He also commented on the remarks of Twitter owner Elon Musk that Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly called him a war criminal for supporting Ukraine.

"From all appearances, Musk was not quite correctly or, rather, falsely informed. This looks like yet another canard. Putin never said that," Peskov noted.

Blocking the social network

Earlier, Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, suggested looking into the possibility of unblocking Twitter in Russia after the social network reinstated the accounts of a number of Russian state agencies. The media watchdog said that it did not see any grounds for this because, as of now, the network’s administration still has not removed 1,300 banned materials.

Access to twitter.com was restricted in Russia by order of the Prosecutor General's Office dated February 24, 2022.

Musk on Twitter

Last weekend, Musk refused to delete a comment about Ukraine posted earlier by Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev on the Twitter social network, which a user urged him to do. The American billionaire responded that all news is propaganda to a certain degree and that the platform was not intended to restrict or promote the accounts of Russian state entities.

That said, the entrepreneur mentioned that he was told that Putin had allegedly called him a "war criminal" for helping Ukraine.