Russian government to ban Instagram

Following the ban on Facebook, Russia has now announced that they will be banning Instagram in the country too, The Verge reported. Russia’s communication agency said that the move was made in response to Meta’s decision to allow calls for “violence against Russian citizens on its social networks Facebook and Instagram”.

Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, tweeted: “This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world as 80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country. This is wrong.”

Giving active users time to manage their content, transfer it to other social media platforms and inform their contacts, the agency has announced that Instagram will be taken down on March 14th.

Even though the Russian oligarchs themselves are on these social networks, the Russian government does not mention that in their notice. For example, Sofia Abramovich, the daughter of billionaire Roman Abramovich, reportedly said that “the biggest and most successful lie of Kremlin’s propaganda is that most Russians stand with Putin.”

Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg believes in providing netizens with the right to freedom of speech, but with this step by the Russian government, it might not be achievable.