Russia Bans Social Media Platform, Blocks Access To Facebook And Twitter

MOSCOW: Amid the ongoing crisis between Russia and Ukraine, social media platforms are now banned in the Russian country following the discrimination of Russian media.

On Friday 4 March, the media regulator in Russia made the major announcement that it has blocked Meta-owned Facebook in the country.

After few minutes of the announcement regarding Facebook being blocked, it was informed by Russian media watchdogs that the microblogging site Twitter has also been banned.

Other mobile applications and websites like BBC and Deutsche Welle's Russian websites, Google and Apple's app stores all were later blocked.

The Russian mass media controlling and censoring body further closed huge local liberal outlets like TV Rain and Echo of Moscow.

The Russian media regulator blocks access aforementioned platform citing the reason as discrimination of its information sources in the social media platforms.

Roskomnadzor, a Russian federal service for supervision of communications, IT and mass in an official statement said that Facebook was allegedly discriminating against the state-run and state-funded media of Russia by putting certain restrictions in media outlets like Zvezda (military television channel) and Russia Today.

The president of global affairs in Meta, Nick Clegg on this matter said that millions of ordinary Russian will not be receiving reliable news and the company will attempt for everything to bring back the services so that users can express themselves.

Notably, in the previous week, the Meta Company had limited access to some of the news outlets from Russia like Sputnik and RT.

Facebook further informed that the photo-sharing app of Meta Instagram and its messaging app Whatsapp is not yet affected by the recent ban on social media platforms.

Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal executive agency responsible for monitoring mass media in the nation claimed that since October 2020 there have been a total of 26 cases against discrimination of Russian information sources by Facebook.

Twitter on Monday informed that the reach of tweets regarding Russian state-affiliated information sources will be limited to make sure that public safety news is brought into focus.

Meanwhile, the second week of the Russian military attack in Ukraine started on 24 February is going to end after massive destruction and loss of lives.

In the recent update of the conflict on Friday 4th March, the Russian troops started bombing at a place near Europe's biggest nuclear power plant that cause a fire in the plant and rose global concern.

Also read: Baby Daniel Awaiting Evacuation From Romania After Fleeing From Ukraine

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