The US-based social network said its automated systems
detected and disabled 530 Instagram accounts being used in the campaign against
protesters who took to the streets in Russia following Navalny's arrest in
mid-January.
"Roskomnadzor has sent Facebook management a letter
containing a request to provide lists of accounts to which access has been
limited and also to explain the reasons for blocking them," the Russian
communications watchdog said.
Roskomnadzor demanded that Facebook, which owns the
image-centric service, also provide proof that the blocked accounts had been
involved in "illegal activities".
The network of Instagram accounts used hashtag and location
"poisoning" typically associated with spam or financial scams to
drown out posts by protesters, according to Facebook global threat disruption
lead David Agranovich.
Some of the Instagram posts suggested people got COVID-19
and died as a result of attending protests, according to samples provided by
Facebook.
Facebook reported that 55,000 people followed one or more of
the Instagram accounts.
Tens of thousands of opposition supporters took to the
streets in January and February to protest Navalny's arrest and President
Vladimir Putin's two-decade rule.
Navalny was sentenced last month to two and a half years in
a penal colony for breaching parole terms while in Germany recovering from a
poisoning attack Novichok nerve agent.