Updated: March 12, 2022 9:02 AM IST 
New Delhi: The Russian government has moved to block access to Instagram in the country from March 14, labelling the app’s parent company, Meta (which also owns Facebook), an ‘extremist organisation’, according to Russian news agency Interfax and state-owned news agency TASS. The move comes right after Meta decided to relax its hate speech policy to allow Instagram users to call for violence against Russian soldiers. Earlier this week, Instagram has started ‘downranking’ posts from Russian state-controlled media in people’s Feeds, and placing them lower in the Stories tray.
‘In accordance with the Federal Law ‘On Countering Extremist Activity’, the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation sent an application to the court to recognize Meta Platforms Inc. as an extremist organization and ban its activities in the territory of the Russian Federation,’ the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation said.
Russia has already blocked Facebook from the country, but reports suggest it is letting WhatsApp (also owned by Meta) continue to operate.
WhatsApp ‘will not be affected by measures against Meta, since it is a means of communication not posting information’, a source told state-owned agency RIA Novosti.
TikTok, the Chinese-owned video app, said on Sunday that it would suspend live-streaming and the uploading of videos to its platform in Russia.
According to Russian state media RT, the Meta-owned social network Instagram called Russia’s decision to ban the platform “wrong” and averred that it would hurt millions of people. Instagram head Adam Mosseri in a statement on Friday said, “On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia…This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world as ~80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country. This is wrong.”
Follow Us 
By 
