Bloggers offered Putin to unblock social networks banned in Russia Meta
The address of the President of Russia to Vladimir Putin and Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev includes the Council of Bloggers at the highest chamber of the Russian Parliament. Bloggers in letters ask to see the decision to block social networks Instagram and Facebook, report “Vedomosti”. “Ensuring the Meta Protection Social Network”, which is recognized as an extremist danger in Russia and banned.
The authors described the consequences of restricting access to social networks: “Russia has lost the original channel for forming a positive image, and Russian users of the country have lost the ability to create resources aimed at protecting the interests of the country.” The creators of the collection for social networks believe that due to the blocking of social networks, Russia is conducting an investigation during the spread of the “special operation” * on the territory of Ukraine.
Bloggers note that domestic social networks “have not become an equivalent and significant replacement for banned networks,” they are not found among foreign and Russian users. According to the blogger, a quarter of Russians use VPN services to bypass blocking, and many of them are providers that work with unfair trading, browsing histories, IP addresses, etc.
According to the poll, who was elected a member of the Council of Bloggers under the Federation Council, due to the blocking of social networks, 12.6 million Russians faced problems and the inability to conduct business in them. For some of them, such as self-employed women on maternity leave, it was a source of income. The report says that bloggers actively used social networks for charity fundraisers. So, in early August, Instagram collected 10.8 million rubles, they bought school supplies and warm clothes for schoolchildren in Donbass, bloggers themselves delivered humanitarian aid, said coordinator of the council Valeria Rytvina. According to her, without the restriction of social networks, the number of fees would be greater.
Instagram and Facebook were blocked by Roskomnadzor in late February – early March 2022 for posting information with calls, as the Prosecutor General’s Office explained, to violence against participants in the “special operation” and informational Russia and Belarus. On March 21, the Tverskoy Court of Moscow adopted the Meta-Extremist Ban and banned its activities in Russia. In early October, Rosfinmonitoring contributed to the list of terrorists and extremists. According to the research company Mediascope, since January 2022, the average daily coverage of Instagram in Russia has decreased by 4 times in September, to 9.2 million visitors, Facebook coverage by 5 times, to 1.7 million people. The largest social network in Russia was “Vkontakte” – 51.8 million daily visitors over 12 years old, according to Mediascope data, against 46.1 million Russians in January.
Political scientist Konstantin Kalachev believes that the blocking of Instagram happened “to the heap” with the closure of Facebook. Meta social networks, in particular Facebook, do not pose a threat to the authorities, and Instagram is an apolitical platform, Alexei Makarkin, First Vice President of the Technology Attack Center. He doubts the possibility of unlocking social networks. With the annulment of the decision of the Tverskoy Court to ban Meta, there may be a problem arising from the managing partner of the college of media lawyers Fyodor Kravchenko, but with a positive decision of the president, it formally arises unreasonably. According to the lawyer, the Russian authorities at one time unblocked Telegram in this way – “unknown to everyone.”
*According to the requirements of Roskomnadzor, when producing materials for use in production in Ukraine, all Russian media are required to use materials only from conventional sources of the Russian Federation. We cannot publish materials during which an operation called “attack”, “invasion”, or “declaration of war” is carried out, unless it is a direct quote (Article 57 of the Federal Law on the Media). In case of violation of the requirements, the media may be fined 5 million rubles, and the blocking of the publication may also be continued.