Moscow. June 7. INTERFAX.RU – The head of the Krasnoselsky municipal district Ilya Yashin, oppositionist Yevgeny Domozhirov, photographer Yevgeny Feldman and the capital's municipal deputy Vadim Korovin have filed a class action lawsuit against Roskomnadzor in connection with the slowdown of Twitter.
The lawsuit was filed in the Tagansky court, the plaintiffs' lawyer, senior partner of the Network Freedoms project Stanislav Seleznev told Interfax.
The applicants asked the court to oblige Roskomnazdor “to cease the use of centralized response measures in the form of slowing down the speed and other restrictions on the work of Twitter”, and also to oblige the department “to exclude the service from the list of threats to the stability, security and integrity of the functioning of the Internet and public communication networks in the Russian Federation. “.
The plaintiffs indicated that they have never published illegal content or called for violence and are not connected in any way with the account holders responsible for posting the allegedly prohibited information on Twitter. Therefore, they view the slowdown of the service as an interference with their right to free expression of their opinion.
“The rights of each of the plaintiffs are largely affected by the applicable restrictions, since the publication of media files constitutes a significant part of their communication with the audience,” the lawyer added.
He explained that his principals want to check the legality and validity of the use of Roskomnadzor's new technology, “which affects a large number of users,” especially since the department promised to slow down other services as well.
Interfax has not yet received any comments from Roskomnadzor on the claim.
Roskomnadzor reported on March 10 that it began to slow down Twitter traffic on all mobile devices and on half of desktop computers in order to force the company to remove banned content at the request of officials. On May 17, the agency announced that the service has removed 91% of the prohibited content and will not block it yet. The service removed the Twitter speed limit on desktop computers, while keeping it on mobile devices.
The Tagansky District Magistrate's Court fined the company almost 28 million rubles ($ 1.2 million) for failing to remove prohibited content, including messages about uncoordinated rallies.
