On the night of January 14, Twitter for a while suspended the account of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, citing a hacking attack from U.S. territory as the reason, TASS reports citing Ivestia. News about the account’s suspension came amid reports of the death of 23 people in Norway, who had received a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTec.
First Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma Foreign Affairs Committee Vladimir Dzhabarov believes that the suspension by Twitter stems from unfair competition.
“It’s kind of like the sanctions that the Americans use worldwide. They see that our vaccine is gaining momentum, and more and more countries are expressing interest in it and registering it. Perhaps, they want to stop news about our vaccine from spreading,” the senator told the newspaper.
“It clearly shows that America is no longer the beacon of freedom of the press but has morphed into a totalitarian power,” he added.
“It’s not funny when social media owners stop viewing them only as a business and start imposing their own tastes and phobias,” political scientist Konstantin Kalachev noted. “However, we have already seen it happen to newspapers and television. Why should social media be any different? This will result in user flow from one social media network to another,” he added.
“Word of our vaccine and its successes has spread around the world. It’s disadvantageous for those who seek to drive it out of the market,” member of the Russian Civic Chamber, journalist Alexander Malkevich pointed out.
“Seeing that the first wave of fake news about our vaccine produced no result, our opponents decided to limit the flow of information on it,” he stressed.
