Facebook, Twitter blocked in Russia

Russia's Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications) decided to block Facebook social network in Russia, a message posted on the website of the department said. Later the same day, the agency proceeded to block Twitter. 

The decision was made in response to actions of European governments to block a number of Russian media outlets. Since October 2020, 26 such cases have been recorded.

During the recent days, access has been limited to the accounts of the Zvezda TV channel, RIA Novosti, Sputnik, Russia Today, as well as Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru publications.

Such restrictions are prohibited by Federal Law No. 272-FZ "On corrective actions on persons involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation,” the agency said.

Earlier, Roskomnadzor announced partial restriction of access to Facebook, a US-based social network. Prior to this, Meta refused to comply with the decision of the Russian authorities to remove restrictions from withheld accounts.

Earlier, the agency blocked websites of such publications as Voice of America (recognized as a foreign media agent), BBC, DW, Meduza (recognized as a foreign media agent); Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (recognized as a foreign media agent). Projects of the listed publications, "as well as a number of other information resources," were also subject to restrictions, Roskomnadzor said.

“The reason for restricting access to these information resources on the territory of the Russian Federation was the purposeful systematic publication of materials containing false information about the point of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine, its form, methods of combat operations (attacks on civilians, strikes on civilian objects infrastructure), quantitative losses of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and casualties among the civilian population," the department said.