The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation demanded that Meta (former Facebook) be recognized as a terrorist organization, as well as to block Instagram in the country. This is reported by the RBC Telegram channel with reference to the department.
The reason for the block is “Meta temporarily lifted the ban on incitement to violence against the Russian military on its platforms,” calling it a form of political expression.
Explanations
Deep in Moscow at night, Reuters published a message according to which Meta allowed to call for violence against Russians, the Russian military, as well as the presidents of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus.
Subsequently, it turned out that it was a little bit about something else: calls for violence only in relation to the Russian military and the presidents. If ordinary Russians are offended and threats are spread against them, then such messages and accounts that distribute them will be blocked. This is stated in the original text of Reuters, citing a company message:
We will still not tolerate credible calls for violence against Russian citizens.
Why were calls for violence allowed?
Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora human rights organization, expressed his opinion:
Social networks have never faced hostilities between large countries where they have millions of users. Obviously, there were no protocols and algorithms of behavior (now they obviously will).
Facebook has been criticized for years for its opaque procedures, internal censorship, and the potential for abuse of corporate standards. Many, many users in Russia faced one-, three-, 30-day bans on their accounts, were forced to create spare ones, and so on. Obviously, the vulnerability was that pro-government users or bots were able to “disable” the accounts of public opinion leaders with mass complaints.
It is also obvious that with the outbreak of hostilities, this practice has sharply intensified, and the Facebook team has ceased to cope with the current analysis of complaints. As a result, apparently, it was decided to turn off the restrictions by distributing appropriate instructions within the company. Apparently, this letter leaked to journalists, as a result, the story received such publicity. The same opinion is shared by specialists in the field of technology.
Head of the Agora
And here I agree: in the confrontation between the two countries, pressure has increased on the Meta support service, which is already not famous for its promptness.
It’s also worth considering that Reuters referred to an internal letter, not a press release. This does not justify the company’s decision, but it does explain why the company did it.
What threatens users?
For average users, nothing but losing access to Instagram without a VPN. The same Chikov reassures that there is no need to delete accounts, posts and correspondence from Facebook and Instagram.
For those who used Instagram and Facebook as advertising platforms, difficulties arose already last week: all advertising stopped. As a result, many people have already lost their jobs.
If Meta is indeed found to be extremist, there will be several consequences:
- Russians will be prohibited from launching advertising campaigns using the company’s tools, as this will be regarded as financing extremist activities.
- The use of the Meta, Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram logos will be prohibited.
- The company’s applications will disappear from Russian app stores.
Therefore, for the time being, there will be no prosecution for using the Meta services. This is confirmed by Senator Andrei Klishas in a commentary to RIA Novosti.
