Russia’s Envoy to OSCE Slams Blocking of Delegation's Facebook Page as 'Censorship'

Earlier, the Facebook account of the Russian delegation at the talks in Vienna on military security and arms control was blocked following posts about security guarantees.

The Facebook account of the Russian security delegation in Vienna has been restored. However, Russia has not received any explanation from Meta, Konstantin Gavrilov, the head of the Russian delegation at the Vienna talks on military security and arms control, said.

Earlier in the day, Russia's OSCE Permanent Representative Alexander Lukashevich said that the blocking of the Facebook page of the Russian delegation in Vienna was a politically-motivated attempt at censorship.

"This is, of course, an absolutely intolerable situation. A situation where we are faced with a direct threat to silence our opinion. This is a direct attempt at censorship based on political motives. We will raise the problem to our specialized institution - the Representative on Freedom of the Media and the OSCE Secretary General, as well as the Polish Chairmanship," Lukashevich said during a briefing at the Rossiya Segodnya information agency.

The page, affiliated with the Russian Foreign Ministry, was blocked for allegedly publishing illegal content.

On 16 January, Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor sent a request to Meta (which owns the Facebook social network) to remove restrictions from the official Facebook page of the Russian delegation at the talks in Vienna on military security and arms control.

Roskomnadzor noted that these actions of the administration of the social network Facebook violate the key principles of the free distribution of information, and unhindered access to it. The agency considers this an act of censorship, which is prohibited by the Russian Constitution.