Against the backdrop of the Meta scandal, Russian politicians and government agencies began to massively leave Instagram and other American social networks, migrating to Telegram and domestic platforms. Roskomnadzor said it would block Instagram on March 14, giving users 48 hours to switch. In the material - government agencies and government officials who announced a boycott.

Briefly about the scandal with Meta

On March 11, Reuters reported a change in content moderation policy, initially in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. The company allowed to publish on its social networks calls for violence against Russians and the Russian military, as well as to call for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. Summons are only allowed if they do not target other people, and do not indicate the location of the [subject] or the method [of killing]. A spokesman for Andy Stone confirmed this information in his Twitter posts.

Immediately after the news was published by Reuters, the Russian Embassy demanded that the United States stop the "extremist activities" of Meta. Roskomnadzor sent a request to Meta with a request to comment on the situation (confirm or refute the information). The Prosecutor General's Office sent a request to Roskomnadzor to restrict access to the social network Instagram. In addition, the agency filed an application with the court to recognize Meta Platforms Inc. extremist organization and the prohibition of its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation opened a criminal case in connection with illegal calls for murder and violence against citizens of the Russian Federation by employees of the American company Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram.

Vice President of Meta Platforms Nick Clegg said on his Twitter that the new rules for content moderation will apply only on the territory of Ukraine, although initially it was reported about a wider list of countries. Later, the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, confirmed that the social network would be blocked by Roskomnazor in Russia from March 14.

Prosecutor General's Office

One of the first to leave Instagram was the Prosecutor General's Office. According to the department, “Instagram distributes information materials containing calls to commit violent acts (murders) against citizens of the Russian Federation, including military personnel, and also systematically posts information containing calls for the participation of citizens on the territory of the Russian Federation in mass riots, accompanied by violence."

In this regard, the department decided to stop working on Instagram.

Russian Government

Following the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Russian Government announced the boycott of Instagram: “Based on the requirements of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, access to the Instagram social network (owned by Meta Platforms, Inc.) on the territory of the Russian Federation will be limited. In this regard, we stop updating our news feed on Instagram.”

The government noted that now you can follow the news either on the website or in the account of the Cabinet of Ministers in VKontakte.

State Duma

On behalf of its speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, the State Duma stopped publishing news on its Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. The refusal of these sites is due to the fact that "Meta allowed calls for violence against Russians", and "Twitter repeatedly violated Russian law."

As an alternative, the State Duma indicated its accounts on the social networks Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, as well as its Telegram channel.

Ministry of Health

On March 12, the Ministry of Health stopped publishing news on its Facebook and Instagram accounts: “Based on the requirement of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation, access to the Instagram social network (owned by Meta Platforms, Inc.) in the Russian Federation will be limited. Due to this decision, we will stop updating our news feed on Facebook and Instagram.”

The Ministry of Health indicated that you can follow the news in the ministry's accounts on VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, in the Telegram channel and on the website.

Representatives of the authorities

Governor of the Moscow Region Andrey Vorobyov, Governor of the Murmansk Region Andrey Chibis and Governor of the Astrakhan Region Igor Babushkin announced their departure from Instagram and Facebook. All politicians explain their decision by disagreeing with the new Meta policy regarding content moderation. They offer users to subscribe to their pages in Telegram, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.

Governor of the Kamchatka Territory Vladimir Solodov refused to use Instagram. As the politician said: “Telegram, Vkontakte, Odnoklassniki - from today we will communicate with you only on these sites. In the current situation, I consider it unacceptable to continue using my Instagram page.”The head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, called the decision of Roskomnadzor to restrict access to Instagram timely. Kadyrov wrote on his Telegram channel: “Today we see that the Meta company has become an instrument of information warfare and a means of promoting extremism, fascism and terrorism. And her hostile policy is now directed not only against me, but also against more than 140 million people in our country. I consider it very correct and timely to demand the blocking of this platform.” The head of Chechnya urged "unanimously" to move to other platforms.

Speaker of the Moscow Regional Duma Igor Bryntsalov announced his departure from all Meta social networks: “Dear friends! Subscribe to my channel in Telegram and my page in VK. I stop running social networks that belong to the META platform. Instagram and Facebook have long been moving towards unilateral censorship, but now they have finally turned into resources hostile to Russia and all its citizens, into a platform for outright military propaganda.”

Governors Andrey Travnikov (Novosibirsk region), Alexander Brechalov (Udmurtia), Alexei Russkikh (Ulyanovsk region) and Roman Starovoit (Kursk region) announced the boycott of Instagram and Facebook. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced his departure from Instagram, calling subscribers on VKontakte and Telegram. He called Meta's actions "open extremism". Kurgan Oblast Governor Vadim Shumkov also condemned Meta's actions and deleted his Instagram page.

By 21:30 Friday (Moscow time), the heads of 44 out of 85 subjects supported the boycott of Instagram and Facebook. In addition to the mass exit from social networks, government officials began to publicly condemn Meta for “boundless cynicism and duplicity”, “legitimizing calls for genocide”, “outright hatred for all Russians, which defies any understanding and justification”, “legalization of Russophobia” and more.

At the same time, most politicians did not begin to delete accounts, having settled on a simple cessation of the publication of news. The deputy head of the LDPR faction, Yaroslav Nilov, indicated that his account would remain until it was prohibited by law. He decided to wait for the decision of the court on the suit from the Prosecutor General's Office and only after that decide what to do with the profile.

bbabo.Net