Russian President, Vladimir Putin has on Friday ordered the restriction of access to American-owned social media giant, Facebook.
Gatekeepers News reports that communications regulator in Russia, Roskomnadzor made the announcement earlier on Friday but stopped short of revealing the full extent of the restriction.
The move is seen as retaliation to Facebook’s restriction of several Kremlin-backed media houses over Russia’s invasion of neighbours Ukraine.
Roskomnadzor on Friday also stated that it had spoken to Facebook to lift the restrictions placed on the access of the Russian companies but its appeals fell on deaf ears in the United States.
Some of the methods of restriction the communications regulator accused Facebook of using is marking some of the posts as unreliable and imposing technical restrictions on the post to limit its reach. The regulator said the sanctions on Facebook had started on Friday without clearly describing hat the move meant.
Roskomnadzor said the move is in a bid to protect Russian media in the face of aspersions from the West on Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Gatekeepers News reports that more than 66 million Facebook users are in Russia, and will be affected by the restriction. The company has previously been accused of fueling tension in war zones and the move may be seen as a direct response to Facebook’s restrictions of Russian accounts and also a means to limit the spread of fake reports.
