Rssia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against Facebook parent company Meta Platforms accusing the company’s employees of “illegal calls for murder and violence” against Russian citizens, according to a statement the committee published Friday.
Russia’s media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said in a statement it was cutting off access in response to Facebook’s decision this week to block Russian media outlets such as RT and Sputnik for people within the European Union.
“On March 4, 2022, it was decided to block access to the Facebook network (owned by Meta Platforms, Inc.) in the Russian Federation,” the regulator said.
It cited “26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources,” actions it said are prohibited by Russian laws on the dissemination of information.
It was not immediately clear if the decision applied only to Facebook or also to other services such as Instagram and WhatsApp, all of which are owned by parent company Meta.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president for global affairs, criticized the decision and said the company would fight back.
“Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out,” Clegg said in a statement.
