Facebook Instagrammed Facebook and Instagram "because of extremism"

The Tverskoy Court of Moscow on the claim of the prosecutor general's office of the Russian federation recognized the American internet company Meta as an extremist organization. Instagram Facebook and Instagram owned by her, allegedly " for extremist activities, "Interfax reports.

According to the Russian newspaper, the prosecutor general's office appealed to the court because of the company's refusal to remove calls for violence against Russians, in particular military personnel, from its services.

"The court ruled: the statement of claim of the prosecutor general's Office of the Russian Federation is subject to satisfaction, (...) the court's decision must be implemented immediately," Judge Olga Solopova said.

Why WhatsApp wasn't banned

In particular, the Telegram channel of the Moscow courts of general jurisdiction clarified that from now on, the activities of Meta Platforms Inc Corporation are prohibited in Russia. Instagram Facebook and social networks on the territory of the Russian Federation "on the grounds of carrying out extremist activities."

At the same time, this decision does not apply to the activities of the WhatsApp messenger company Meta "due to the lack of functions for public dissemination of information."

In addition, citizens ' use of all three social networks of the American company should not be considered as participation in extremist activities.

In turn, the Meta representative at the court session denied accusations of extremist activities of the company. She also asked the court to discontinue the proceedings on this claim, pointing out that the consideration of the case against a foreign company was not within its competence. But Judge Solopova rejected all the defendant's petitions.

Facebook Instagram has been blocked since March 4, and Instagram has been blocked since March 14, 2022.

What happened before that

Instagram Facebook and Facebook users will be able to post messages calling for violence and death. If we are talking about the war in Ukraine and the author wishes death to the Russian invaders, Putin, Lukashenko, then moderators will not block such texts.

However, this rule will not apply to all countries. Calls for the death of the invaders will be made in Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

Before that, Meta began blocking Russian propagandists and state-owned media. The company said that it has created a round-the-clock Special Operations Center for rapid response to problems. They also announced expanded capabilities of fact checkers for checking information in Ukrainian and Russian. They indicated that they will additionally finance Ukrainian partners who are engaged in fact checking.

From clear steps at the company level:

Meta Platforms Inc has banned Russian state-owned media outlets from placing ads on Facebook and monetizing content on its platform anywhere in the world.Messenger: gave access to the functions of notifying screenshots and disappearing messages in end-to-end encrypted chats.WhatsApp: added A "View Once" feature for photos or videos (if you enable this feature, media files will disappear after viewing). We also added a "disappearing mode" to automatically delete all new chats after 24 hours. This will protect your information if you lose your phone.