Russia Declares Meta An 'Extremist Organization,' Officially Bans Facebook And Instagram

Apparently, there is one step above getting Zucked: getting "Putin'd." A Russian court recently ruled that Meta, the conglomerate that owns Facebook and Instagram, is effectively an "extremist organization," meaning Facebook and Instagram are now outright banned in Russia. However, the messaging app Whatsapp, also under the Meta umbrella, is not banned.

Earlier this month, Russia banned Facebook for limiting access to Russian news outlets amid the country's invasion of Ukraine, while Instagram was blocked for allowing calls for the death of Vladimir Putin if the posts came from the countries Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. Their moderation policy was later limited to exclude death threats against heads of state, but the damage had apparently already been done. The recent ruling upholds Russia's ban after Meta's appeal.

The ban had already had effects on Russia's population of influencers, as they've had the app that proved the source of their livelihood taken away.

Russian influencers devastated by Instagram ban #ban #Ukriane #Russia #Influencer pic.twitter.com/IAGocSYliA

— Ukraine Supporter (@HuyenTran2020) March 15, 2022

TikTok, which is owned by Tencent and not Meta, is still operational in Russia, though influencers there have attracted controversy for allegedly reading from the same script to push pro-Kremlin narratives.

I saw this one earlier without the voiceover. it seems like Russia is using TikTok influencers and giving them a script to read from pic.twitter.com/gIr81r9gsC

— 🥀_Imposter_🕸️ (@Imposter_Edits) March 6, 2022