Russia has formally banned Facebook and Instagram in the country for their involvement in “extremist activities”. Interfax reports it. The Moscow secret services directly asked for a “stop” in the context of a trial for “extremism” held in the Moscow court. «The activities of Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram, ed) are against Russia and its armed forces. We therefore ask that Meta be banned and that this ban be applied immediately, ”said Igor Kovalevski, spokesman for the FSB at the first hearing of the trial.
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UPDATES FROM THE UKRAINE BY FRANCESCO SEMPRINI AND NICCOLÒ ZANCAN. DIRECTED BY CHIARA BALDI, ROBERTO PAVANELLO
The proceeding against Meta had been opened by the Attorney General, after the two social networks had “ignored” thousands of requests for the removal of content deemed “false” concerning the military invasion of Ukraine. The ban was also requested by the Moscow prosecutor, and finally accepted by judge Olga Solopova.
Meta’s services, therefore, are officially blocked in the country: in fact they had already been for a fortnight: from midnight on March 14 last, a sort of government “censorship” entered into force, which the giants of the web have suffered. tried to get around. Twitter, for example, had launched a Tor version of the platform, which guaranteed its use even in the event of censorship. After today’s decision, things get more complex.
In the country, albeit with various difficulties, the messaging apps Whatsapp and Telegram continue to work, while TikTok has suspended itself. Whatsapp is very popular in Russia, with around 67 million users (65% of all internet users in the country), far more than TikTok, the Russian social media platform VK and even Telegram, according to eMarketer data. According to American experts and academics, this relative tolerance of Moscow towards Whatsapp and Telegram could depend on the fact that the former, owned by Meta which also owns Facebook, cannot be used for “mass” messages, while the second precisely for its ability to reach thousands of people at the same time has also proved useful for the Kremlin.
Twitter deletes 75,000 accounts and removes 50,000 fake content about the war in Ukraine
The “Youtube case” also remains on the ground, with its over 76 million users in the country (the data refer to 2021). Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor said that “YouTube’s activities are of a terrorist nature and threaten the life and health of Russian citizens.” Roskomnadzor denounced Google’s “clearly anti-Russian” position and asked the American company to “stop broadcasting anti-Russian videos as soon as possible”.