The regulator, Roskomnadzor, said that there have been 26 cases of discrimination Russian media By Facebook since October 2020, which includes restrictions in recent days on state-backed channels such as RT and RIA news agency.
The move is a major escalation in an ongoing conflict between big tech companies and Russia, which has issued several fines and hobbled services through a recession in recent years. Tensions rise amid Russian invasion UkraineWhat Moscow calls a “special operation”.
Russia has restricted access to Twitter, the Tass news agency reported on Friday. Interfax news agency previously said the service had been blocked.
Twitter Inc. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Meta’s head of global affairs Nick Clegg said the company would continue to do everything it could to restore its services.
“Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from credible information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with their family and friends, and silenced from speaking out,” he said in a statement posted on Twitter.
In a blog, Meta said it was working to keep its services available “to the maximum extent possible”, but that it had stopped showing ads to users in Russia and prevented Russian advertisers from running ads anywhere in the world. Was given “at this time due to the difficulties of operating in Russia”.
tech companies like Alphabet Inc’s Google Advertisements have also been halted in Russia amid growing demands for censorship.
Last week, Moscow said it was partially limiting access to Facebook, a move the company said came after it rejected a government request to halt independent fact-checking of several Russian state media outlets. On Saturday, Twitter also said that its service was being restricted to some Russian users.
Major tech companies have faced pressure to respond to the February 24 invasion, which has led to economic sanctions against Moscow by governments around the world. Russian state-run media has emerged as an important flashpoint between Moscow and social media platforms during the conflict.
Meta said this week that it had restricted access to RT and Sputnik across the European Union and had globally demoted Facebook pages and Instagram accounts of Russian state-controlled outlets, as well as posts containing links to those outlets on Facebook. was doing.
Russia has taken several steps in recent days to crack down on foreign news media. It also cut off access to the websites of several news organisations, including the BBC, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, as it purports to spread false information about its operations in Ukraine.
The government of Ukraine called on Meta and other platforms during the conflict to withdraw their services from Russia. Online speech experts and rights advocates have expressed concern about the impact of blocking online services for Russian citizens trying to organize or obtain information.
According to estimates by Insider Intelligence, Meta had about 7.5 million users on Facebook in Russia last year and 122.2 million on its other services, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. The researcher estimates that Russia’s leading social network VK had 63 million users.
The popular VPN app in Russia has been downloaded more than 1.3 million times since the invasion of Ukraine began, according to data from researcher AppFigure, who described the figure as a huge increase.
Meta was also one of several tech companies facing potential punitive measures in Russia after they failed to open local offices and take other measures required by a communications law passed this summer.
Tech companies globally have pulled out of Russia in response to requests from governments or to signal support for Ukraine. US Internet provider Cogent Communications said on Friday it was cutting internet service for Russian customers.
Earlier this week, business software giant Oracle Corp said it was suspending all operations in Russia, while rival SAP SE said it would halt all sales in the country. A Ukrainian government official tweeted seeking support from both companies.
Roskomnadzor said in its statement that Meta had in recent days restricted access to the accounts of state-backed news outlets, RT, Sputnik, the RIA news agency, Zvezda TV of the Ministry of Defense and the websites gazeta.ru and lenta.ru listed.
It said such restrictions violated key principles of freedom of information and free access of Russian Internet users to Russian media.
(Reporting by Reuters, including additional reporting by Paresh Dave in Oakland, Calif., and Sheila Dang in Dallas, Texas; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Jonathan Otis)
This story has been published without modification in text from a wire agency feed. Only the title has been changed.
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