The meta logo displayed on the phone screen and the Russian flag displayed on the screen in the background are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on March 1, 2022.
Jakub Pozhitsky | Nurfoto | Getty Images
Russia’s technology regulatory agency on Friday restricted access to Instagram after Parent company Meta Platforms has begun allowing users in some countries to call for violence against the Russian president and the military.
Earlier Friday, Russia opened a criminal case against Meta and tried to declare it an extremist organization due to a temporary change in its policy of hate speech and the resolution of threats on Instagram and Facebook in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Roskomnadzor, Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Communications, said restrictions on access to Instagram would be limited “based on an order from the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation.”
Russia had already blocked domestic access to Facebook on March 4 after the platform imposed restrictions on government-linked media in the immediate aftermath of its invasion of Ukraine.
As of November, Instagram and Facebook had more than 60 million users in Russia, according to Statista.
Reuters first reported the change to Meta’s hate speech policy on Thursday, citing internal emails from the company.
The policy allows Instagram and Facebook users in Russia, Ukraine and Poland to call for the death of allies of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
It also allows calls for violence against Russian soldiers in these three countries, as well as in some other countries in Eastern Europe, the Baltics and Western Asia.
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“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily allowed for forms of political expression that normally violate our rules, such as aggressive language such as “death to the Russian occupiers.” We continue to not tolerate credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesman said in a statement to Reuters.
On Thursday, CNBC reported that there is a growing use of virtual private networks in Russia, which could allow users to bypass government restrictions on access to certain sites and apps.
According to SensorTower data compiled for CNBC, since February 24, the number of downloads of the top 10 VPN apps in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in Russia has increased by 1500% compared to the previous 13-day period. .
Twitter on Thursday removed two tweets from the Russian embassy in the United Kingdom for what the company called “denial of violent events” in connection with the attack on Ukraine.
In one deleted tweet, the Russian embassy claimed that a pregnant woman seen in a photo of the injured in a children’s hospital in the port city of Mariupol that was destroyed by a Russian airstrike was actually a Ukrainian “beauty blogger”, suggesting the photo was staged propaganda. .
At least one child and two adults died in hospital and 17 others were injured, Ukrainian officials said.