Russian telecommunications agency Roskomnadzor announced on Friday that it would block access to Facebook in Russia and claim discrimination against the Russian media after October 2020.
A Statement from the agency Facebook posted online said it was involved in “26 discrimination cases against Russian media and information resources.”
According to Roskomnadzor, Meta-owned platforms have recently restricted access to Russian outlets such as Russia Today (RT), Sputnik News, Lenta, Gazeta, RIA Novosti and Zvezda TV channels. Russia’s state-owned news agency TASS does not appear to have been banned from the platform.
When I tried to access Facebook via a Russian VPN, the Facebook version of Facebook didn’t seem to be down or blocked. It is not clear when the ban will come into effect.
The agency said the Facebook ban violates Russian federal law on “measures affecting people involved in the violation of basic human rights and liberty, the rights and liberty of Russian federal citizens.”
Other BigTech platforms, such as Google-owned YouTube, have also banned Russian retailers such as RT and Sputnik in Europe after Russia invaded Ukraine from February 24th.
Meanwhile, within Russia, the Kremlin has chosen to ban foreign media such as Radio Free Europe, the BBC and Deutsche Welle this week. Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Google app stores seem to have been blocked all night in Russia on March 3rd and March 4th. according to In the report.
Voice of America (VOA), the US state news agency, said Wednesday that it would not comply with Russian authorities after trying to block Russian websites unless it removed coverage of the Ukrainian conflict.
Several Russian television and radio stations, including TV Rain and Echo of Moscow, were also closed by Russian authorities on Thursday. Russian officials said they violated a law prohibiting the description of Ukrainian conflict as “war” or “aggression.”
The deputy editor-in-chief of RT America, a state-owned channel, confirmed that the company’s US operations were closed this week. However, it’s not clear why the channel shut down, even though the host of the RT show said it was because DIRECTV and Roku canceled the delivery platform after the intrusion.
“Our groundbreaking channel, RT America, had to stop broadcasting after more than a decade, and T & R Productions, the company that provided much of that content, took on the challenge. We are sad and disappointed that we had to shut down most of our operations because of this. Anna Berkina told the Epoch Times in a statement.
“But the staff who have produced award-winning news and show content for many years are working hard to find a way to stay within RT’s international family,” she adds. rice field.
follow
Jack Phillips is the latest news reporter for The Epoch Times, based in New York.