Due to various concerns that all these websites are disseminating baseless allegations and misinformation, Facebook has been under increasing pressure to restrict access to Russian state-controlled media. Russia’s telecoms regulator announced Friday that it has restricted Facebook connectivity after the world’s most popular social platform began making content from Russian state-controlled media increasingly difficult to track down on its site. Russia stated it was going to slow down bandwidth to Facebook in order to limit availability after the social network declined to cease evidence and identifying information uploaded on Facebook by four Russian state-owned media companies. On Tuesday, Facebook has announced further limitations on Russian media, including the global demotion of posts containing connections to Russian government news organizations like RT and Sputnik.
Despite growing worries about the propagation of misinformation, Facebook has refrained from blocking access to social services in Russia. According to the firm, it wishes to foster individual freedoms. According to the social media behemoth, individuals in Russia are also utilizing its platforms to demonstrate and prove to the world what’s going on in actual environments. Facebook it’s not the only platform that Russia is targeting. According to reports, the country has restricted access to many major app stores, international news organizations, and other social networking sites.
The restriction came about as a result of growing internal opposition to the country’s military assault of Ukraine. Russians have turned to the sidewalks in large numbers to demonstrate against the military invasion, responsible for thousands of arrests. The leadership has dismissed any intention of imposing military intervention but has continued to threaten media outlets who publish material damaging of the current military operation.
In reaction, some media outlets said that they would stop their operations within Russia to assess the damage. CNN, for example, said that it will cease operating in Russia, while Bloomberg and the BBC announced that their reporters there would be immediately halted. Russia is expanding its attempts to limit the dissemination of information about the Ukrainian incursion and is taking action targeting independent news outlets. The action comes in the wake of a government assault on independent press and activists that has been unparalleled since the beginning of the Russian invasion. Customers claimed broadband connections so slower when visiting sites from Russian Proxy servers that they were made useless.