The Russian Government has announced a plan to ban the operations of Instagram in the country.
This was disclosed in a news report by Russian state media agency Ria Nu on Friday afternoon after Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office opened a criminal case against Meta.
It was also revealed that the Russian government plans to label Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, an extremist organization.
What they are saying
According to the report, “Prosecutor General’s Office asks the court to recognize Meta as an extremist organization and ban its activities in Russia.”
“The Prosecutor General’s Office asks the court to recognize Meta as an extremist organization and ban its activities in Russia.
“The Russian Investigative Committee opened a criminal case under two articles (public calls for extremism and promotion of terrorism) because of the Meta policy, which allowed calls for violence against Russians.
It added that WhatsApp will not be affected by the Meta action as it is a means of communication.
What you should know
- This is coming after it was disclosed that Meta will allow users to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.
- A Meta spokesperson said in a statement, “As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”
- Nairametrics also reported that Nigeria has escaped appearing on Russia’s ‘unfriendly list’ as the Eastern European country moves to ban exports to 48 countries till December 2022.
- Russia announced that “The list includes over 200 products, including technological, telecommunication and medical equipment, vehicles, agricultural machinery, electric equipment, as well as railway cars and locomotives, containers, turbines, metal and stone cutting machines, video displays, projectors, consoles and switchboards. This measure is necessary to maintain stability on the Russian market.”
- The list includes Albania, Andorra, Au, Canada, members of the European Union, Iceland, Japan, Liechtenstein, Micronesia, Monaco, Montenegro, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Norway, Singapore, San Marino, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan (the Republic of China), Ukraine, the United Kingdom, including Jersey, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands and Gibraltar, and the United States of America.
