Russia will block Instagram from Monday (14/3) tomorrow. The ban was announced just a week after Russia declared Facebook's ban.
At that time Facebook was blocked on the grounds of discrimination against Russian media. This time, the Kremlin said the blocking of Instagram was based on Meta's policy of allowing posts containing violent remarks against Russian soldiers regarding the invasion of Ukraine.
Russia's Communications Agency (Roskomnadzor) said the ban was announced two days before the deadline for Russian Instagram users to transfer their photos and videos to other social media.
"Since active Instagram users will need time to transfer their photo and video material to other social networks and to notify their contacts and subscribers, Roskomnadzor decided to complete the procedure for restricting access to Instagram at 00:00 on March 14, giving users an additional 48 hours to transition period," said Roskomnadzor in his official statement, as quoted from The Verge, Sunday (13/3/2022).
The official statement did not mention that wealthy Russians used Instagram to criticize the invasion of Ukraine. Like banker Oleg Tinkov, once the 15th richest person in Russia, who in his Instagram post wrote 'We are against this war!'
Responding to the policy, Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said it was something wrong because it would cut off the access of Instagram users in Russia with the outside world.
"On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia. This policy will cut off 80 million people in Russia from each other and from the rest of the world because ~80% of people in Russia follow Instagram accounts outside their country," Mosseri said in a tweet on Twitter. .
Currently WhatsApp is the only Meta platform that is not blocked by Russia. It is not known whether WhatsApp will soon face the same fate, but it is reported that this messaging application is treated differently by Russian authorities because it is not a public social media.
In addition to Facebook and Instagram, Russia has also blocked Twitter. To overcome this censorship and blocking, Twitter finally launched a special site that can be accessed via Tor Onion or better known as the dark web.