Russian regulatory agencies have threatened to ban Instagram and declare its parent company, Meta, an “extremist organization.”
The decision, which Russian officials announced on Friday, follows Facebook, another Meta subsidiary, approving temporary modifications to its content moderation guidelines to allow users to call for violence against Russian armed forces on Facebook and Instagram.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office announced on Friday that it had filed a petition “to recognize Meta Platforms Inc. as an extremist organization and ban its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation,” according to Russian news agency Interfax.
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The head of the Duma’s Committee on Information Policy, Alexander Khinshtein, called for Instagram to be banned if reports of Meta’s loosened policy toward calls for violence against Russian troops were accurate.
“If Meta confirms this fact or declines to comment, that will be a reason for Roscomnadzor and other colleagues to take the toughest measures,” Khinshtein told TASS. “My opinion is that the work of Instagram in Russia in this case should be blocked, like what’s happened to Facebook.”
The Russian tech regulatory agency Roskomnadzor echoed these concerns, issuing a statement asking Meta to address the claims, and the Russian Embassy in the United States issued a statement on Twitter calling for U.S. “authorities” to stop the “extremist activities” of Meta.
The changes to Facebook’s moderation policies were initially discovered within a series of emails reviewed by news outlets on Thursday and later confirmed by the company.
“I want to be crystal clear: our policies are focused on protecting people’s rights to free speech as an expression of self-defense in reaction to a military invasion of their country,” said Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, in a statement. “This fact is, if we applied our standard content policies without adjustments we would now be removing content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces, which would rightly be viewed as unacceptable.”
Clegg said this policy only applies to Ukraine and that the company has “no quarrel with the Russian people.” He also said that the company’s policies on hate speech relating to the Russian people would not change and that Meta would not tolerate “Russophobia.”
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Technology companies have become increasingly supportive of Ukraine, taking actions such as removing of posts by Russian-controlled accounts alleging that the bombing of civilians was fake, automatically deleting “misinformation,” and suspendinng TikTok livestreams in Russia.
Russia blocked access to Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube on March 4 over the companies’ decisions to regulate and fact-check their state media.
