Roskomnadzor says it is banning Instagram in Russia from March 14 because Meta now allows posts “calling for violence against Russian citizens”
The VergeRichard Lawler
Context & Ripple Effects
Russia had already imposed a partial restriction on Facebook after Meta blocked some Russian media outlets, while Meta later demoted links to Russian state media across Facebook and Instagram. Its subsequent temporary policy permitting certain violent-speech posts supplied Roskomnadzor with the stated basis for escalating from limits on Facebook to action against Instagram.
First-order effects
Instagram users in Russia face loss of access from March 14, while Meta loses distribution for one of its services in the country.
Roskomnadzor turns Meta’s content-policy exception into a regulatory justification for the ban, tying platform access directly to moderation rules.
Second-order effects
Russia’s parallel move toward designating Meta an extremist organization raises the pressure on Meta beyond Instagram; related coverage says WhatsApp is treated differently as a communications service.
Meta’s decision to demote Russian state-media links and allow limited war-related violent speech now carries an access cost in Russia, forcing its regional policy choices into direct conflict with local enforcement.
Third-order effects
The sequence—from restrictions on Facebook to an Instagram ban and an extremist-designation push—points to platform moderation becoming a trigger for service-level controls by national regulators.
If that pattern holds, multinational platforms will increasingly have to manage separate market-access risks for individual products rather than treat a single global content policy as operationally neutral.
The trend: Russia’s actions are part of a broader shift in which governments use platform-access controls to contest companies’ content-moderation decisions.
On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia. This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world as ~80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country. This is wrong.
BREAKING - Russia just started process of banning Instagram. It's huge because this is really a much loved platform in Russia and also the source of income for lots of small businesses across the country. And for young Moscow elites it's.. everything https://twitter.com/...
One of the #Russian bloggers cries that in two days her Instagram will stop working She does not care at all about the thousands of dead people, including her compatriots. Obviously, her biggest worry right now is that she won't be able to post pictures of food from restaurants. …
Stupid people think that when Russians don't have Facebook or Instagram, their lives are over. There are many alternatives and Chinese apps are actually much superior. That's why Zuckerberg is dying to copy everything made by Chinese apps into his apps. https://twitter.com/...
The 80% is a real interesting number, but it still feels... low? It feels like a result of the global internet would be that people just follow others, especially celebs, regardless of nationality. Would love to see the breakdown for other countries. https://twitter.com/...
As we know from at least two whistleblower former FB employees, FB execs have never adequately dealt with the harms it causes. In 2018, Mosseri: “We're trying to take the issue [role of Facebook in genocide] seriously, but we lose some sleep over this.” https://www.businessinside…
In 2018, the U.N. said Facebook played a “determining role” in the Myanmar genocide. Adam Mosseri, head of FB's News Feed, was asked what happened in Myanmar: “Connecting the world isn't always going to be a good thing.” I'm not super interested in this guy's view of right/wrong.…
In Russia, I have done things like buy socks/furniture/book a massage/a restaurant/a dentist appointment on Instagram. Russian authorities called for Instagram to be blocked in the country - it would be a tremendous blow for small and medium business, it's their main platform.
Pretty hard to describe to people who haven't been to Russia just how important Instagram is to young Muscovites. For the wealthy elites, it is basically a lifestyle. I once even joked that blocking Instagram might be the one thing that causes a revolution. Now, I'm not so sure. …
The implications of this are enormous. Instagram is the most popular social network in Russia by far and is crucial to small businesses - from beauty blogging to coffee shops. WhatsApp has 77m users in Russia, nearly double what Telegram has. And most Russians don't have VPNs.
This is not surprising at all once you realize social media companies are political and make rules to serve their political agenda. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Oh, I see. Don't worry, folks, this new rule-by-exception approach to social media death-threat rules certainly won't come to America and apply to select “regime enemies.” That would never happen here... https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...