The regulator, Roskomnadzor, said on Friday there had been
26 cases of discrimination against Russian media by Facebook since October
2020, with access restricted to state-backed channels like RT and the RIA news
agency.
The company this week said it had restricted access to RT
and Sputnik across the European Union and was globally demoting content from
Russian state-controlled outlets’ Facebook pages and Instagram accounts, as
well as posts containing links to those outlets on Facebook.
Last week, Moscow said it was partially limiting access to
Facebook, a move the company said came after it refused a government request to
stop the independent fact-checking of several Russian state media outlets.
Meanwhile, Tass news agency reported on Friday that Russia
had restricted access to Twitter. Interfax news agency earlier said the service
had been blocked.
Twitter Inc did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
Meta’s head of global affairs Nick Clegg said the company
would continue to do everything it could to restore its services.
“Soon millions of ordinary Russian will find themselves cut
off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting
with family and friends and silenced from speaking out,” he said, in a
statement posted on Twitter.
Major tech and social media companies have faced pressure to
respond to last Thursday’s invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which has led to
economic sanctions against Moscow by governments around the world. Russia calls
its actions in Ukraine a “special operation”.
Roskomnadzor said Meta had restricted access to the accounts
of state-backed news outlets in recent days, listing RT, Sputnik, the RIA news
agency, the defence ministry’s Zvezda TV and websites gazeta.ru and lenta.ru.
It said such restrictions violated the key principles of
freedom of information and Russian internet users’ unimpeded access to Russian
media.
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