Russian prosecutors are seeking a court to designate Meta Platform Inc’s Facebook and Instagram as “extremist” after Moscow blocked Facebook and limited Twitter in conflict with the US social media platform The invasion of Ukraine has since spiraled.
The crackdown on social media intensified after the Russian government banned Facebook access under a new media law last week. However, if a judge approves the “extremist” classification, it would effectively criminalize all of META’s actions in Russia. In addition, the company’s instagram The app will be disabled.
It comes at a time when tensions between the United States and Russia escalated after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared war on Ukraine, calling it a “special military operation”.
Facebook-owned parent company Meta Platforms said on March 11 that it only needed to make a temporary change to its content policy for Ukraine, so that users could express their opposition to Russia’s attack. This happened after Russia filed a criminal complaint when the company said it would allow terms such as “death to Russian invaders”.
Russian prosecutors urged the court to label the US social media giant, while the Russian communications regulator announced that Meta’s access to Instagram would be banned starting March 14. The move is expected to affect around 80 million Russians who are using the social media platform. ,
It was Russia’s investigative committee, which announced that “a criminal case” had been launched against Facebook. This committee reports directly to the Russian President.
Nick Clegg, president of Meta Global Affairs, later tweeted a statement, saying that the company’s goal was to protect free speech as a form of self-defense in response to the invasion of Ukraine and that the policy only applies to Ukraine.
In the statement, Clegg said: “There has been a lot of coverage and discussion about how we are implementing our policies in the speech in the context of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine… We will now remove content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and anger at the invading military forces, which will be considered unacceptable if the policies are implemented without any adjustments.
“We have no quarrel with the Russian people. As far as the Russian people are concerned, our policies on hate speech have not changed.”
censoring social media
In China, many web services are blocked, including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat. But its friendly neighbor Russia has been trying to follow in China’s footsteps for more than a year.
The Kremlin is attempting to limit the influence of United States tech companies such as Google And Twitter, which considers it illegal, has been fined repeatedly for allowing it.
Following the return of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny to Russia from a hospital in Germany, where he was treated for poisoning with the chemical weapon Novichok, efforts to regulate the distribution of adversarial material on social media will continue in early 2021. increased more.
However, the invasion of Ukraine, which was met with international condemnation and severe sanctions, has raised the possibility of further sanctions.
According to the arguments made by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office, such an action by the management of META not only promotes the impression that terroristic activity is permitted, but also aims to incite hatred and enmity against citizens of the Russian Federation . Because of this, Russian authorities urged the court to classify Facebook and restrict its activities inside the country.
It is understood that among popular social media platforms, YouTube and VK.com have emerged as the top two choices, followed by Meta’s Instagram, TikTok, OK.ru, Facebook and Twitter.
In the case of Facebook, Russia recently announced that it would ban the platform in the country in response to a claim that it banned access to Russian media on the platform.
However, WhatsApp, which falls under the broad umbrella of Meta, is also widely used in Russia. But according to reports, it will remain unaffected by legal actions, as the messaging app is supposed to be a medium of communication rather than a way of posting information.
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