Russia says it offered Twitter talks after slowdown, but firm not responding

Credit: Reuters file photo.

Russia's state communications watchdog said on Thursday it had offered discussions with Twitter after restricting access to the platform for Russian users, but that the company was not responding, the Interfax news agency reported.

Russia said on Wednesday it was slowing Twitter down in retaliation for what it called a failure to remove banned content, and threatened to block the US social media platform outright.

Roskomnadzor, the watchdog, said it was "absurd" of Twitter to accuse Russia of seeking to throttle online public conversation, Interfax reported.