Six Twitter accounts parodying the Russian government and politicians have all gone silent in the new year. While not suspended from the platform, they all have been entirely inactive, prompting speculation they were somehow secretly banned or coerced into inaction.
These same accounts, the most popular of which is @DarthPutinKGB (a Vladimir Putin parody), were suspended temporarily in June, an act many speculated was at the behest of the Russian government, although Moscow publicly denied it. Russia has strict laws forbidding anti-Kremlin comments on the Internet, although this would only apply to Russian citizens. Twitter did not comment on the matter in June but reactivated the accounts following public outcry.
The last tweets from these accounts are all New Year’s related.
Americans will celebrate New Year's Eve 2017 on Moscow time.
— Darth Putin (@DarthPutinKGB) December 31, 2016
The accounts that have gone silent also include @SovietSergey (a Sergey Lavrov parody); @Sputnik_Not, @RusEmbassyNot; @AmbYakovenkoNot; and @Russia__Not. Most of the accounts appear to follow Twitter’s guidelines involving parody accounts by including the word parody in the bios.
Many on Twitter are concerned by the disappearance and do not believe the silence of all the accounts to be a mere coincidence.
Hey @Support! Where are @DarthPutinKGB, @SovietSergey, @Sputnik_Not and @AmbYakovenkoNot? RT please.
— Laura (@LauraHuu) January 15, 2017
DarthPutin also runs a blogspot, but that has been inactive as well since December 22nd.
Twitter would not comment on the matter, saying they do not answer questions on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.
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