The Russian media regulator has announced that it is blocking Facebook in the country, saying that it had discriminated against Russian media and information resources.
Media reports said that the Russian websites of BBC and Deutsche Welle, Twitter, and Apple and Google’s app stores were all blocked.
“In March 2022, a decision was made to block access to the Facebook network (owned by Meta Platforms, Inc.) in the Russian Federation,” the Russian media regulator statement said.
Meta president Nick Clegg said the company was doing “everything we can to restore our services”.
“We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action,” Clegg said in a statement.
Earlier this week, Meta had restricted access to Russian media outlets like RT and Sputnik.
The security policy head of Facebook had said that the company is closely monitoring the situation in Ukraine and will keep sharing steps they are taking to protect people on their platform.
On Monday, Twitter had said it would label and limit the reach of tweets linking to Russian state-affiliated news sources, and announced that it was temporarily suspending ads in Ukraine and Russia “to ensure critical public safety information is elevated.”
Earlier this week, the US had accused Moscow of mounting “a full assault on media freedom and the truth” as officials there seek to “mislead and suppress” information about the war.