After warning its people that they have 48 hours to retrieve their photos and video from Instagram on Friday, March 11th, Russia has followed through and has banned the Meta-owned social media app in the nation, according to The Washington Post.
Russia’s communication and mass media state regulator Roskomnadzor was behind the ban, and notes that it comes after a temporary change in Meta’s hate speech policy that allows people from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine to publish posts that call for violence against Russian troops along with the Russian and Belarusian presidents.
Since then, Meta has backtracked its policy and has now banned people from posting about a head of state’s death, according to Reuters, but that is unlikely to change Russia’s decision.
Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram are now banned or restricted in some capacity in the nation, whereas WhatsApp has avoided all scrutiny.
Source: The Washington Post
