Russian senators call for a boycott of Twitter ads

The Russian Federation Council’s Commission on Protecting State Sovereignty and Preventing Foreign Political Meddling has advised Russian companies to avoid buying advertisements on Twitter, in response to the company’s recent decision to ban promoted content from the state-funded media outlet RT.

“The U.S. state authorities and intelligence agencies are openly infringing on free speech, actually forcing certain commercial enterprises to participate in anti-Russian actions,” said Oleg Morozov, the commission’s chairman. Morozov says he believes a Russian boycott of Twitter ads could cost the company “millions of dollars.”

On October 26, Twitter announced that it was “off-boarding” all advertising from accounts owned by RT and Sputnik, and donating the $1.9 million it’s received in ad buys from RT to support research into “the use of Twitter in civic engagement and elections.”

RT says Twitter actually pushed it to purchase a large number of ads during the 2016 U.S. election, but the channel turned down the offer. The main idea RT says Twitter pitched was for the network to “take a stand.” RT says it eventually declined the offer, deciding that the ads were too expensive.