Russian government announced on Friday that it blocked Facebook. Within hours, Twitter popped up are also blocked. The moves are a major escalation in a standoff between Big Tech and the Kremlin that has been brewing since the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
The announcement appeared to be in retaliation for restrictions placed on pro-Kremlin accounts by social media platforms. Russian media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said it had registered “26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information sources by Facebook”. It is unclear if the block is permanent. “We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services,” Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at Facebook mother Meta, said in response to the news.
Before the blockade, Facebook had been busy labeling the outlets it considered to be under the control of the Russian state, a decision the country’s media regulator labeled “censorship.” Last week, when Russians clicked on links posted on Facebook by RIA Novosti, the TV channel Zvezda or the websites Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru, they were taken to a page with a red exclamation mark next to the words “Russia state-controlled media” and were asked if they would “go back” or “follow link”. The pages Facebook tagged stood out for omitting the violence taking place in Ukraine. Last week, Zvezda’s Facebook page featured no pictures of bomb-damaged buildings in Ukraine. Instead, the reports told supporters of an officer who was killed heroically as part of the special operation, talked about how Russian forces were “liberating” settlements in the Donbas and promoted claims of “shelling of Donetsk by Ukrainian nationalists.” Ukraine has previously denied Russian allegations that it is shelling this region.
Since Russia invaded, the world has turned its financial system into a weapon to weaken Putin. The US has banned transactions with the Russian central bank. The UK has told British ports not to allow ships owned, controlled or chartered by Russians. Now, public pressure is urging big tech companies to issue their own kind of sanctions by cracking down on the Russian state-backed media that amplify the Kremlin version of events on US platforms. On Friday, Meta agreed to a request from the British government to block RT and Sputnik on both Facebook and Instagram. The European Commission has also confirmed to WIRED that it has a letter of the country’s deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, accusing social media platforms of acting like “digital arms dealers” by spreading Vladimir Putin’s propaganda and asking the EU to “delete all Kremlin-affiliated accounts worldwide” .
But the Russian government’s decision to block Facebook and Twitter exposed the costs of those measures. It will also be read as a warning shot to other social networks planning similar actions against Russian propaganda. American social media sites operating in Russia have spent years shaping a presence that retains just enough of their American identities to be considered a liberal alternative to heavily censored domestic platforms, but not enough to persuade Russian regulators. kick them out of the country. The crisis in Ukraine has upset that delicate balance. As the Ukrainian government puts pressure on the platforms to block Russian state media altogether, concerns have been raised that if the platforms do, Russia will retaliate — shutting ordinary Russians behind a digital iron curtain.
Until Friday, LinkedIn was the only US tech platform banned in Russia in 2016. Instead, Big Tech is wildly popular in a country with 99 million social media users. In 2020, YouTube was the country’s most popular social network, with Facebook and Instagram also in the top 10, according to a report by Statista. Twitter is number 11. The relationship between these platforms and the Russian government was complicated even before the war, says Alena Epifanova, a research fellow at the German Council for Foreign Relations. Instead of blocking these sites, the Russian government has tried to curtail freedom of expression from within. Since 2015, the Russian media regulator, Roskomnadzor, has enacted a series of laws designed to force social media companies to remove content. But the platforms have managed to get around them so far, Epifanova says. “Foreign companies and especially US-based companies are not really adhering to the regulations.” Instead, American platforms have been able to build a reputation as liberal carve-outs on the Russian internet that are critical to local activists and independent journalists. “These companies really offer a single [place] now for Russian opposition and for Russian critical voices,” she adds.
But this online freedom is now in jeopardy as Big Tech’s relationship with Russia is being squeezed from all sides. “One type of pressure is the pressure to leave the country completely,” said David Kaye, former United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of expression. “The other pressure, which is in line with that, but not as draconian, is to moderate and remove disinformation in the country faster and more vigorously… But there is also this new pressure from Russia, for the companies to keep the content high. ”
