The biggest social networking giants Facebook and Twitter are now battling against the Russian Government orders to remove content related to the protest for Alexei Navalny. Alexeu Navalny is a lawyer and anti corruption crusader who has been home imprisoned for an allegation of fraud by the Russian Government. According to supporters of Navalny, this was a nothing but a mean motivation of the government to pressurize him for his political motivations. Navalny is a well known and popular opposition leader and rallies and protests in support of his rights are flowing our the social networking sites. The Kremlin’s effort to restrict the online information was first to accept the request initially. Soon more pages were started which carried on with the protest. Just as Facebook found out the burgeoning protests, it took consultancy of lawyers and curbed any further actions. YouTube and Twitter received similar requests but the videos and posts are very much there, defying the orders from Russian government to censor the content.
Twitter recently confirmed that they have been receiving several requests to erase all contents that are in support of Navalny. Prosecutors are trying hard to bring into effect his punishment of 10 years of imprisonment. A Twitter spokesperson told Wall Street Journal that Twitter has “not removed the content they specified”. They have forwarded all the admonishing orders of the Government to the users. YouTube has kept every content. A spokesperson for Roskomnadzor said the prosecutors’ order to block rally content will be accomplished fully but did not mention on how will it be carried out. He added, “We’re talking to everybody differently”.
