It is understandable why some companies are hesitant to allow governments access to their data, and in the past we have seen companies fight to prevent that from happening. However there are some parts of the world in which the fight would prove to be a lot harder, such as in the case of Twitter in Russia.
Over in Russia, it seems that the state’s media censors, Roskomnadzor, have demanded that Twitter store its user data in the country. This is apparently a response to the change of Twitter’s terms and conditions in which it sort of makes Twitter have to comply with Russian laws with regards to user data.
According to Roskomnadzor chief Alexander Zharov who spoke to the Financial Times (paywall), “They changed their user agreement some months ago. And if you read that, people must provide a set of metadata, which in our understanding as a whole counts as personal data and [makes it possible] to identify an individual,”
This basically means that according to Russian law, any site with user data of Russian citizens had to be stored within the country. If Twitter does not comply, they could face a fine and be blocked. Facebook was also subject to a similar demand, but earlier this year the social network stated that they would comply with that order.