Twitter restores Putin's parody account

After facing much criticism for temporarily suspending the parody accounts of famous politicians, including President Vladimir Putin in Russia, micro-blogging website Twitter has reinstated all the accounts, a media report said.

The Russians were dismayed over the fact that they were being denied the satirical delights offered by these accounts, especially President Putin's.

On Tuesday, Twitter suspended parody accounts of President Putin @DarthPutinKGB and other Russian-themed parody accounts, including @SovietSergey -- a lampoon of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and @AmbYakovenkoNot -- which mocks the Russian ambassador to Britain, Alexander Yakovenko, BBC reported.

@DarthPutinKGB has 50,000-plus followers and its suspension in particular provoked much indignation from Twitter users and also plenty of humour.

Well-wishers tweeted their support for the suspended Darth and criticism of Twitter using the hashtag, #NoGulagforDarthPutinKGB.

While, former world chess champion and Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov accused Twitter of "taking lessons on censorship from the Kremlin", the editor of the Moscow Times opinionated: "Among Darth's high-profile supporters were the real Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves."

When contacted by journalists over Darth's suspension, Twitter refused to comment on the case and referred them to its rules on parody accounts.

These state that accounts should "indicate that the user is not affiliated with the account subject by stating a word such as 'parody', 'fake', 'fan', or 'commentary', and be done so in a way that would be understood by the intended audience", the report said.

Meanwhile, Darth's bio on the restored account remains the same as it was before the suspension: "146 percent of Russians didn't elect me. You don't visit Russia, I visit you. I serve tea to those that call this parody. Tweets made topless signed vvp."

--IANS

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