While slowing down Twitter, Russia ends up shutting down its own state websites: Reports
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During the day, the Kremlin website and a few other state websites were shut down, in what was being assumed as a retaliation by the US
While Russia was in the headlines for slowing down the speed of social media platform, Twitter, they did not realise that their actions were bringing negative effects on their own official websites.
During the day, the Kremlin website and a few other state websites were shut down, in what was being assumed as a retaliation by the US. However, it has now been reported that the shut down was a side effect of Russia's action towards Twitter.
On Tuesday, Russia initiated protocols to slow down the speed of Twitter as retaliation to Twitter's alleged failure to curb and remove banned content.
Russian state communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, also threatened a total block of the social media platform if the US firm failed to comply with the demands.
While Twitter faced tough enforcement from Russia, its own state websites also faced shutdowns. At first, reports speculated that the shut down of Russian websites of Kremlin, Prime Minister, Roskomnadzor and other state departments was a move by the US as a few days before it had warned of a cyber attack against Russia.
This move was being assumed to be from the US as the officials had recently concluded that Russia was likely involved in the controversial SolarWinds Orion attacks that had led to the disruption of several government agencies and private firms' security.
The disruptions of the websites also came a little after the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki confirmed to local media house, CNBC, that the US government will be taking 'a mix of actions seen and unseen' as a rebuttal to the alleged attacks from Russia, but declined to give any further details saying, 'we will not publicly discuss certain aspects of our response.'
Moscow had been busy restricting the use of Twitter in the country after, it said, the platform failed to remove the "illegal" content. "The slowing down will be applied on a 100% of mobile devices and on 50% of non-mobile devices," the regulator said in a statement on its website.
"If (Twitter) continues to ignore the requirements of the law, the enforcement measures will be continued in line with the response regulations (all the way to blocking)," it said.