A Suspiciously Large Number Of Russian Twitter Parodies Have Gone Dark
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The most high profile of the suspended accounts — @DarthPutinKGB — had more than 50,000 followers before it vanished.
People who are used to seeing the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin winking roguishly on Twitter were shocked to learn that the popular parody account @DarthPutinKGB had been suspended as of Tuesday afternoon.
It is just one of many parody accounts focusing on skewering Russian politics that have been taken down in recent days.
Among them are @SovietSergey — which mocked Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov — and one that lampooned Russian Ambassador to the U.K. Alexander Yakovenko.
"We do not comment on individual accounts, for privacy and security reasons," Twitter spokesperson Nu Wexler said in an email when asked what the @DarthPutinKGB account had done to merit the ban or if it is permanent.
A question to Twitter asking whether the Russian government had asked for the suspension went unanswered. Instead Wexler provided a link to Twitter's parody account policy.
Alexander Nemenov / AFP / Getty Images