Russian Court Bans Facebook, Instagram for Extremism

The court’s decision comes in response to Meta's decision to temporarily allow calls for violence against the Russian military by users in Ukraine amid an ongoing special military operation by Russian troops. While two of Meta's platforms are affected, its WhatsApp messaging app is allowed to continue to operate in Russia.

The Tverskoy district court in Moscow, Russia has finished reviewing charges against Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms and ruled to ban both on the territory of Russia over "extremist activities". The court stated that the decision will take effect immediately, although Russia’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor has already started preliminarily blocking the two social media platforms.

At the same time, the court order does not affect another Meta product – the messaging platform WhatsApp. The judge explained the decision by the fact that WhatsApp does not have the ability to publicly spread illegal information.

The prosecutor in the case against Facebook and Instagram earlier stated that Russian users won't face punishment for continuing to use the services provided by the two platforms, but did not delve into legal details. The prosecution argued that Meta's activities on the two social media platforms were aimed against Russia and its armed forces.

Meta's lawyers at the Tverskoy district court said that they had altered their guidelines and banned all forms of Russophobia and calls for discrimination against Russian civilians, as well as calls for killing heads of government.

Facebook was banned in Russia already prior to the court's decision due to its repeated acts of censorship against the pages of Russian media outlets. Russia’s Roskomnadzor had issued several warnings to the social media giant over the course of the past two years demanding that it lift the suspensions, but mostly to no avail.