X reinstates Navalny’s widow after ‘mistakenly’ suspending account

Elon Musk's social network X briefly blocked Yulia Navalnaya’s account following an explosion in followers for the widow of deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Navalnaya started the account only a day ago, vowing to pursue her late husband’s battle against Vladimir Putin. 

“Account suspended,” read a notice on Navalnaya's profile on Tuesday afternoon.

X, formerly known as Twitter, said the ban was a mistake and that it will be updating its procedures.

Previously, X had also restricted the visibility of Navalnaya's account. A shadow ban test indicated her tweets were hidden from search outcomes.

Shadow banning is an opaque practice employed by many social media networks, including X, in which accounts are not specifically banned but their visibility is reduced.

Non-subscribers searching for Navalnaya found her profile omitted from recommendations. Furthermore, replies to her messages did not display her original tweets, POLITICO confirmed through testing. 

Social media users have previously reported being placed under search bans for sudden spikes in followers on new accounts. Navalnaya's rapid follower increase — to nearly 100,000 in a single day with three posts — could have triggered the platform's automated moderation.

In a post, X's safety team said: "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."

Navalnaya's video, in which she says she will continue Navalny's opposition to the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, attracted over 4.6 million views before the suspension. On Tuesday, Yulia Navalnaya also posted the appeal of Alexei’s mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya, to Vladimir Putin, demanding that the body of her son be handed over to the family. 

X reinstated Navalnaya’s account less than an hour after suspension, which occurred at around 1:40 p.m. Brussels time.

Sergey Goryashko is hosted at POLITICO under the EU-funded EU4FreeMedia residency program.