Russia Adds Meta to 'Terrorist and Extremist' Groups List

Daughter companies Facebook and Instagram were already banned in March for carrying out ‘Russophobia’

Russia financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring, just recently added Meta to its list of terrorists and extremists groups. This means that Meta now has a place on the list that is dominated by nationalist or foreign terrorist organisations. This includes groups such as the Taliban and Russian opposition parties.

This is not the first chapter of Russia’s war against Meta. Back in March, Russia went on to ban Meta’s daughter companies Facebook and Instagram for “carrying out extremist activities”. The companies were also accused of tolerating “Russophobia” during the Russia Ukraine conflict.

The primary cause behind the banning of Facebook was its announcement on March 10. Social Media giant in response to Russian criticism replied that the platform will allow certain statements such as “death to Russian invaders”, but not those that directly affect the citizens.

The Putin administration and Russian department accuse Meta of being biased in its laws. Over time, the hate grew so much, that a top used application found its way into the country’s list of terrorist groups.

Instagram for years has been Russia’s most used social application. A big part of the country’s fashion and advertising industry was dependent on Instagram.

While the apps are now banned and added into the list of terrorist, people in the country are still using them. They are doing so by using Virtual Private Networks (VPN) and connecting to IP addresses of countries where the app is still operational.