Meta says that Russia is limiting access to some of its services because it refused a demand to stop fact checking the country’s claims.
In a post to Twitter, Meta VP of Global Affairs Nick Clegg said that Russia had demanded that the company “stop the independent fact-checking and labelling of content” posted to Facebook by “four Russian state-owned” outlets. Meta refused and now some of its services are being restricted.
Yesterday, Russian authorities ordered us to stop the independent fact-checking and labelling of content posted on Facebook by four Russian state-owned media organizations. We refused. As a result, they have announced they will be restricting the use of our services.
Ordinary Russians are using our apps to express themselves and organize for action. We want them to continue to make their voices heard, share what’s happening, and organize through Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
The move comes as Russia tries to control the news stories circulating inside Russia amid its ongoing aggression towards Ukraine, a country it began the invasion of a day or so ago.
Clegg’s comment suggests that Russian news agencies wanted to be able to post content to Meta’s platforms without the possibility of it being flagged as untrue during the fact-checking process. Following Meta’s refusal to pause those checks, Russia is now preventing its people from accessing parts of the Meta ecosystem of services.
