Russia has included Meta among the “terrorist and extremist” organizations: why it happened and what it means

Rosfinmonitoring, the Russian government agency that monitors financial operations in the country, added Meta in the list of “terrorist and extremist” organizationsas reported by several Russian news agencies.

On the one hand, this means that the American company can no longer operate in the country (which he already did with enormous difficulty) and on the other hand that the Russians who try to access WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram, the main platforms controlled by Meta, will be able to incur penalties and also be prosecuted.

Also today, Rosfinmonitoring has entered also Vesna, a Russian pacifist organizationon the list of those who would be involved in terrorism and extremism.

An arm wrestling that began in the spring

As early as last March, access to Facebook, Instagram (and even Twitter) had been severely restricted after social networks were accused of discrimination and russophobia, of make room for posts calling for violence against Russians by active users in Ukraine and Poland (which actually happened) and vice versa to prevent Russian users from accessing government-supported news outlets, such as Sputnik and Russia Today. In the following June, a Moscow court had rejected Meta’s appeal against this provision.

As you understand, the question is more political than anything else: the Russian market, although vast, is certainly not the main one for Meta (Facebook subscribers are about 50 million), which suffers from competition from VK, the most popular social platform in both Russia and Ukraine. And yet, Meta is the perfect example of the so-called “American imperialism” so unwelcome to Putin and the Kremlin: Hitting Zuckerberg’s society is also a way to send a signal to the United States and its policies. And never mind if this further contributes to Russia’s isolation from the West.