X briefly suspends account of Alexei Navalny’s widow

Yulia Navalnaya’s account on X – formerly Twitter – was briefly suspended a day after she used the platform to vow to continue her husband’s campaigning.

On Monday, she posted a video promising to fight for a “free Russia”, days after Alexei Navalny’s death in a Russian prison was confirmed.

On Tuesday afternoon her account was briefly not accessible to users.

In a statement, X said it was blocked “mistakenly” due to a system “error”.

A post on the site’s official safety account read: “Our platform’s defense mechanism against manipulation and spam mistakenly flagged @yulia_navalnaya as violating our rules.

“We unsuspended the account as soon as we became aware of the error, and will be updating the defense.”

Ms Navalnaya, who generally kept a low profile throughout her late husband’s campaigning, created an account on X on Monday.

In a video message posted the same day, Ms Navalnaya accused Russian authorities of waiting for traces of the deadly nerve agent Novichok to disappear from her husband’s body before releasing it to his family. The Kremlin said the accusation was unfounded and an investigation into his death was ongoing.

The emotional video statement, in which her voice could be heard to shake with grief and anger, was widely shared by other users.

Her account has amassed more than 100,000 followers since it was created.

According to X’s guidelines, accounts can be suspended for posting spam or abuse, or if the security of an account is at risk.

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