Moscow (Russia), February 14: Twitter has blocked the account of the Russian delegation to the Vienna talks about Military Security and Arms Control, according to a statement from the delegation's head, Konstantin Gavrilov, on Saturday.
According to the platform, the account violated its rules.
"On Feb 12, @TwitterSupport blocked the official account of the RUS Arms Control Delegation (@armscontrol_rus). What are the reasons? An alternative position of RUS on the trends of the current pol-mil situation in Europe voiced at the @OSCE [the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe] Seminar on Mil Doctrines?" Gavrilov wrote on his Twitter account.
The Russian diplomat said that Twitter resorted to "naked censorship" by blocking official accounts presenting the position of one or another country.
He also declared that the delegation appealed to the social network, and informed the head of the talks, Helga Schmid, about the Twitter suspension.
According to Gavrilov, the blocking was linked to the fact that the delegation tweeted a number of statements about NATO and military doctrines.
Delegation head Gavrilov later said that the account was unblocked but lost all its subscribers.
"Twitter has unblocked the account without offering explanations ... But all subscribers disappeared, we will have to start from scratch. The content was intact", he told Sputnik.
Meanwhile, the Russian foreign ministry expressed hope that the blocking of the delegation's account was due to a technical issue, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told Sputnik, adding that Moscow has already sent a request to the social platform.
"[We] have already sent a request to the company. We hope that it is a purely technical issue", Zakharova said.
Earlier this week, the Russian Ministry of Defence said it decided to skip the military doctrine seminar of the OSCE for the first time in 30 years, citing the West's unfriendly policy. Russia was represented at the delegation and discussed military doctrines at the closing session.
Source: Sputnik