A week after banning Facebook in Russia, the country’s communications agency, Roskomnadzor, has announced that it will also will ban instagram.
While the Facebook ban cited “discrimination against Russian media,” this time the Russian government Putin says it’s happening due to a decision by parent company Meta directing moderators to allow posts that call for violence against Russian soldiers if they originate from certain countries, including Ukraine.
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In an official statementRoskomnadzor said the following: “As you know, on March 11, Meta Platforms Inc. made an unprecedented decision by allowing the publication of information containing calls for violence against Russian citizens on their social networks Facebook and Instagram. Messages circulating on the Instagram social network encouraging and provoking violent acts against Russians, in connection with which the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office demanded that Roskomnadzor restrict access to this social network.
However, they have given their citizens some time to adjust to the change. “Since active Instagram users will take time to transfer their photo and video materials to other social media and notify your contacts and subscribers, Roskomnadzor decided to complete the procedure for imposing restrictions on access to Instagram at 00:00 on March 14providing users with an additional 48 hours of transition period.”
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Instagram is the third most used social network in Russia. In fact, its manager, Adam Mosseri, said in a tweet what “this decision will separate 80 million in Russia from each other and from the rest of the worldas ~80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside of their country.”
News of the ban also comes just days after Meta announced plans for Instagram will label the state media than in Russia and Ukraine they are “hiding information about people’s followers, who they follow, and the people who follow each one.”
For now, lock does not affect to the instant messaging platform WhatsAppalso owned by Meta.
About the change of rules in Meta
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Meta spokesman Andy Stone noted: “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukrainewe have temporarily allowed forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules, as a violent speech like ‘death to the Russian invaders’. We will not yet allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”
For his part, the president of global affairs of MetaNick Clegg said in a statement Friday that the company’s policies were “focused on protecting people’s right of expression as an expression of self-defense in reaction to a military invasion of their country.” And he added that if Meta/Instagram applied their permanent policies without adjustments, now they would be “removing the content of ordinary Ukrainians who express their resistance and anger” to the Russian invasion“which would rightly be considered unacceptable”.
Meta’s global affairs chairman clarified that the temporary policy would apply only within Meta’s own Ukraine. “We have no problem with the Russian people,” she added, stressing that “Russophobia and any kind of discrimination, harassment or violence towards Russians” will not be tolerated on its platform.
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