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Russia on Tuesday slowed down the speed of Twitter in a move to restrict the microblogging website but accidentally shut down Kremlinxe2x80x99s own website as well as other government agency sites, reported the Guardian. The state communications regulator, Roskomnadzor said that it was retaliating overxc2xa0Twitterxe2x80x99s alleged failure of removing the banned content over nationwide protests in support of Russian President Vladimir Putinxe2x80x99s critic Alexei Navalny. Russian authorities had previously even threatened to entirely block the American platform if it did not comply with its deletion demands.

Even though the punitive move was aimed at the video content on the platform and Twitter was slowed down, several government websites reportedly went abruptly offline on March 10 including kremlin.ru and the Russian government website, government.ru. The action reportedly also impacted Russiaxe2x80x99s internet censor, Roskomnadzor as well as the economics ministry. Several pro-Kremlin commentators evenxc2xa0suggested that the outages of government websites might be due to a possible cyber-attack by the United States.xc2xa0

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been incensed at the role played by social media websites in mobilising support for the jailed opposition leader and his staunch critic, Alexei Navalny. While the Putin critic was jailed in January just after he flew back to Moscow, his arrest sparked the biggest anti-government protests in the country in a decade. Marches were witnessed reportedly in at least 150 Russian cities.xc2xa0

Eventually, after blaming the US, Russia reportedly admitted that the problem faced by government websites was domestic. It further blamed the unavailability of state-owned sites on a router malfunction inside the digital service provider, Rostelecom. The access to the websites was later restored. The media outlet quoted xc2xa0Andrei Soldatov, a Russian cyber expert and author of the Red Web that blocking of the websites was an outcome of an internal xe2x80x9cmess-upxe2x80x9d connected to the Twitter slowdown.xc2xa0

Meanwhile, Russia is also suing five social media giants including Twitter, Google, Facebook for allegedly failing to delete posts motivating children to take part in illegal protests, reported Interfax news agency on March 9 quoting Moscow court. Twitter, Facebook, Google have three respective cases against them and are punishable by a fine of up to 4 million roubles or around $54,000. The report also said that cases have been filed against TikTok and Telegram as well.xc2xa0