The Prosecutor General's Office and the Federation Council accuse Meta of extremism because of calls for violence against Russian military personnel and President Vladimir Putin.
Russian authorities may soon ban all services of Meta Corporation (formerly Facebook). About this TV channel & # 171; Russia 24 & # 187; said the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technology and Communications Sergei Boyarsky (son of actor Mikhail Boyarsky), reports the Chronicle.info with reference to Focus.
According to the deputy from «United Russia», the state regulator Roskomnadzor has all the tools needed to block social networks Meta. Thus, Russia can respond to the measures that the corporation took after the invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine.
Russian agency «RIA Novosti» writes in Telegram that the WhatsApp messenger in the Russian Federation will not be blocked. A source told the media that the app is for communication, not posting information.
A message has already appeared on the website of Roskomndazor about blocking Instagram in Russia at the request of the Prosecutor General's Office. The reason was called materials with calls for violence against Russian military personnel, which are allegedly distributed by users of the social network.
On March 11, information appeared that Meta allowed the publication of calls for violence against the Russian military, as well as the president, on Facebook and Instagram Russia Vladimir Putin and his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko. To do this, the corporation changed the rules for political expressions in its social networks, but emphasized that it still prohibits calling for violence against ordinary Russians.
After that, the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation demanded to recognize Meta «an extremist organization», and soon the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against the company for promoting terrorism, the department also demanded that Roskomnadzor restrict access to Instagram. It is not yet clear whether all users of these social networks are going to be recognized as extremists, but the head of the «Safe Internet League» Ekaterina Mizulina in an interview with «Podim» recommended that Russians delete their Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Head of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrey Klishas, in a comment to «Podim», rated Meta's decision regarding calls for violence as extremism. He spoke in favor of a complete blocking of all company resources.
GlobalCheck, a project to study and help bypass blocking in Russia and the CIS, reported in its telegram channel that it does not yet confirm the blocking of the Instagram social network in Russia.