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Instagram users in Russia are told service will cease from midnight

By:
Reuters
Updated: Mar 13, 2022, 16:35 GMT+00:00

(Reuters) - Russia's embassy in the United States demanded on Friday that Washington stop the "extremist activities" of Facebook owner Meta Platforms, which has temporarily lifted a ban on calls for violence against the Russian military and leadership.

Illustration shows Meta logo and Russian flag

(Reuters) – Instagram users in Russia have been notified that the service will cease from midnight on Sunday after its owner Meta Platforms said last week it would allow social media users in Ukraine to post messages such as “Death to the Russian invaders”.

An email message from the state communications regulator told people to move their photos and videos from Instagram before it was shut down, and encouraged them to switch to Russia’s own “competitive internet platforms”.

Meta, which also owns Facebook, said on Friday that the temporary change in its hate speech policy applied only to Ukraine, in the wake of Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion.

The company said it would be wrong to prevent Ukrainians from “expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces”.

The decision was greeted with outrage in Russia, where authorities have opened a criminal investigation against Meta and prosecutors on Friday asked a court to designate the U.S. tech giant as an “extremist organisation”.

The head of Instagram has said the block will affect 80 million users. Russia has already banned Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform.

The message to Instagram users from the regulator Roskomnadzor described the decision to allow calls for violence against Russians as a breach of international law.

“We need to ensure the psychological health of citizens, especially children and adolescents, to protect them from harassment and insults online,” it said, explaining the decision to close down the platform.

(Reporting by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

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