Russia Blocks Facebook Citing Restriction of Access to Local Media

Russia has blocked access of widely used social media platform Facebook accusing the Meta Platforms Inc. (FB) owned platform of restricting access to Russia media on the platform. This was announced during the weekend by Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor.

According to the communication regulator, since October 2020, there have been more than 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media by Facebook including recent restrictions on state-backed channels like RT and the RIA news agency.

In recent times, tensions between Russia and social media companies have been slowly piling up ranging from fines to Russian authorities pushing the social networks to delete some content from their platforms. The recent invasion of Ukraine by Russia has even escalated the tensions further.

Following this development, Meta’s head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said they will be doing everything possible to ensure their services are up and running again in Russia.

Soon millions of ordinary Russian will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out,” said Clegg.

On the same day also, Tass news agency reported that Russia had restricted access to social microblogging and social media platform Twitter Inc. (TWTR)

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