Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin's regime blocked the Russian population from accessing international platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. A Moscow court upheld this decision and ruled that Meta was guilty of "extremist activity". However, WhatsApp continues to operate in the country and is not affected by the ban. The court mentioned that the messenger cannot be used for "public dissemination of information", as reported by the Reuters agency.
In addition, the Russian censorship agency Roskomnadzor removed Meta from the list of companies that can operate on the Internet in Russia, and removed both Facebook and Instagram from the list of permitted social networks. News publications in Russia are also forced to label Facebook and Instagram as banned entities when reporting on them, and are no longer allowed to use the logos of these social networks.
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It is not clear whether websites that in some way link to their accounts in these networks will also be held liable, which especially applies to e-shops. However, Russia's TASS news agency quoted a court prosecutor as saying that "individuals will not be prosecuted just because they use Meta's services." However, human rights defenders are not so sure about this promise. They fear that any public display of these "symbols" could result in a fine or up to fifteen days in prison.
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The decision to remove WhatsApp from the ban is rather strange. How is WhatsApp supposed to remain operational when Meta is banned from commercial activity in the entire territory of Russia? Considering that this is one of the most popular ways for the Russian population to communicate with friends and family, it is possible that the court came to this decision in order to show some concessions to its population. When Meta shuts down WhatsApp on its own in Russia, it will show the company that it is the one that is preventing communication between Russian citizens and that it is the bad one.
