The Russian government has blocked access to Facebook in the country after claiming that the social network restricted the accounts of four Russian media outlets. Through a statement issued just a few weeks ago, the Russian technology and communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, assured that Facebook was violating “the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens” and that it had registered 23 cases of “censorship” by of the social network since October 2020.
Russia accuses Facebook of censorship
“On February 24, Roskomnadzor sent requests to the management of Meta Platforms, Inc. [to] remove the restrictions imposed by the social network Facebook on Russian media and explain the reason for its veto,” the Russian regulator said, adding that Meta had “ignored” their requests. It’s unclear what Roskomnadzor’s partial restrictions on Facebook mean or whether the government is also somehow blocking access to Meta-owned WhatsApp in the country.
In response to Roskomnadzor’s statement, Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, confirmed that the company refused to comply with government requests to “stop fact-checking and labeling of content posted on Facebook by four organizations.” of Russian state media. “We refuse,” Clegg said through his profile on the social network Twitter. “As a result, they have announced that they will restrict the use of our services,” he explained.
There is also blocking for Twitter
Roskomnadzor said a few hours later that it had also restricted access to Twitter. The move comes after Russia passed a bill that criminalizes the intentional dissemination of what Moscow considers to be false information, a categorization that has become vastly more sensitive in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The bill, quickly passed by both chambers of the Kremlin-controlled parliament and signed by Putin, imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years for those who spread information that goes against the Russian government’s narrative about the war.
In response, several media outlets said they would pause their work inside Russia to assess the situation. Among them, there are international media such as Radiotelevisión Española, CNN, Bloomberg or the BBC. Russia is expanding efforts to control the spread of information about the Ukraine invasion and crack down on independent news sources.
Meta , for its part, has assured that it has been blocking Russia Today and Sputnik News for months in various countries of the European Union, and joined a request from the community bloc that asks the Russian government to stop censoring media outlets in the country. appealing to the right to information that all citizens have, and whose blockade violates numerous international and constitutional conventions on human rights and freedom of the press.
