A Russian court in March had banned Facebook and Instagram in the country, labelling its parent company Meta as “extremist” amid the Kremlin’s crackdown on western social media giants.
Russia’s financial watchdog has added US tech giant Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to a list of organisations involved in terrorism and extremism, the latest escalation against the company since President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine.
Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service Rosfinmonitoring announced this on Tuesday, the official Tass news agency reported. Rosfinmonitoring said “amendments have been made to the list of organisations and individuals in respect of which there is information about their involvement in extremist activities or terrorism.”
There was no reaction from Meta to the latest Russian government’s move. A Russian court in March had banned Facebook and Instagram in the country, labelling its parent company Meta as “extremist” amid the Kremlin’s crackdown on western social media giants. It followed Meta’s announcement that the platforms would allow statements like “death to Russian invaders” but not credible threats against civilians, before saying the change only applied to users posting from inside Ukraine.
Meta appealed against the ban but it was upheld by a Moscow court in June. The decision on Tuesday puts Meta on the same list as right-wing nationalist groups; foreign “terrorist organisations”, including the Taliban; and Russian opposition groups.