Militants are Facebook-Instagram!: Russia has banned both social platforms under the extremist law, there is no objection on WhatsApp
Russia has accused social media company Meta of promoting extremism. Along with this, his two important social media platforms Facebook and Instagram have been banned with immediate effect. On Monday, a Russian court took the action under the country’s anti-extremist law.
However, according to Reuters, the court has no objection to the Meta Key messaging app WhatsApp, that is, its use will continue in Russia. This action against the American company Meta is being linked to the sanctions being imposed on Russia all over the world after the attack on Ukraine. META has not yet commented on the decision of the Tverovsky District Court in Moscow.
The case was filed by the government
The Twarowski Court gave this decision against Meta after hearing a lawsuit filed by government officials. The government prosecutor had filed a lawsuit seeking permission to ban Meta’s activities as anti-Russian.
Earlier during the hearing, META’s lawyer Victoria Shakina opposed calling her company’s activities extremist. He had said that the allegation that the company was motivated by ‘Russophobia’ is completely false. Due to lack of reaction of META against the decision of the court, it is not clear whether it will appeal against it in the upper court or not.
Russia brought legislation to stop Taliban and ISIS
Russia enacted the anti-extremism law to keep control of Islamic extremist activities in its place. Its purpose was to stop the activities of Taliban and ISIS. Many other organizations including these two terrorist organizations were also banned by Russia under this law. However, later Russia also used this law against witnesses in the Jehovah case and the Anti-Corruption Foundation of the anti-Kremlin (Russian government headquarters) opposition leader Alexei Navelny.
Kremlin has already banned Facebook-Insta
The Kremlin has already banned Facebook and Instagram. Russian officials alleged that both platforms were promoting posts that talked about waging a violent conflict against Russia. According to the report of Sputnik, the Kremlin had asked both the platforms to ban such posts. Both platforms were later banned for promoting posts opposing the Russian attack on Ukraine.
Why the court order against the already banned platform
It is not clear why the court has now ordered them to be banned despite Facebook and Instagram already being banned in Russia. Russian officials accused both these platforms of Meta of trying to incite Russian citizens against the government. On this allegation, a criminal case was filed describing his activities as extremist.
