X Suspends, Then Reinstates, Alexei Navalny’s Widow After Pledge to Continue Anti-Putin Politician’s Work

On Tuesday X briefly suspended an account belonging to Yulia Navalnaya, widow of the Russian opposition politician Alexei Nalavalny, who died in prison last week. 

Prior to the suspension, Navalnaya released a video on multiple social media platforms pledging to continue her late husband’s work to unseat Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the video, which advertised social media accounts on Instagram and X, Navalnaya said Putin was responsible for her husband’s death, and pledged to expose the full details.

“We will definitely find out who exactly and how exactly committed this crime,” she said. “We will tell you their names and show you their faces.”

“I will continue the work of Alexei Navalny. I will continue to fight for our country. And I encourage you to stand by my side,” she said. 

Navalnaya’s account on Instagram, where she shared the video, stayed up. On X, however, her account was suspended, sparking concern and outrage among the site’s users early on Tuesday morning. Soon after, the account was reinstated. 

It’s not clear why the account was suspended and quickly restored. A notice on the page said it was banned due to violating X’s rules, without specifying which ones. 

This isn’t the first time X has experienced this kind of incident; last month, the accounts of numerous high-profile journalists and leftists who are critical of X owner Elon Musk and Israel were suspended without explanation. Those accounts were eventually reinstated, and Musk blamed the suspensions on the platform’s automated spam detection systems. 

Navalnaya’s X account was brand new and quickly gained nearly 100,000 followers, which could conceivably trip a spam system that is operating without appropriate oversight. After Musk paid $44 billion for X in 2022, he slashed its staff, including its moderation teams. 

At the time of writing, Musk’s latest tweet is a bad joke about “extra-slutty olive oil.” Motherboard received a boilerplate automated response email from X after reaching out for comment about Navalnaya’s account.