Russia restricted access to Instagram, YouTube blocks Russian state media

Russia has restricted access to Instagram and launched a criminal case against its owner Meta, and YouTube also took action against Putin’s state media channels.

Russia restricted access to Instagram and launched a criminal case against its owner Meta, as Moscow fired back at the tech giant for allowing posts calling for violence against Russian forces.

“The Instagram social network distributes materials containing calls to commit violent acts against citizens of the Russian Federation, including military personnel,” Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor said in a statement explaining the decision.

YouTube also broadened its blocking of Russian state-linked media channels to apply internationally after initially barring them only in Europe following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s internationally condemned attack has provoked unprecedented sanctions from Western governments and businesses, including a growing list of US tech firms.

YouTube’s guidelines “prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivialising well-documented violent events, and we remove content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy,” the video sharing platform said.

Russia restricted access on March 11, 2022, to Instagram and launched a criminal case against its owner Meta. Picture: AFP

“In line with that, effective immediately, we are also blocking YouTube channels associated with Russian state-funded media, globally,” it added.

Content barred by YouTube includes denials of the invasion or claims that it is a peacekeeping operation, the company said.

YouTube-parent Google had already stopped allowing ads on Google properties and networks globally for advertisers based in Russia.

Google global affairs president Kent Walker said previously that the internet giant had “paused the vast majority of our commercial activities in Russia” but its free services such as search and YouTube continued to operate there.

YouTube posts associated with the invasion of Ukraine that contain what might be considered hate speech could be permitted if the content is educational, artistic or scientific in nature, according to YouTube.

It comes after Russia’s state-controlled television networks have defied Vladimir Putin’s Ukraine war blackout to broadcast opposition against the invasion of Ukraine as being “worse than Afghanistan”.

As the Ukraine conflict entered its third week, the prominent Russian filmmaker Karen Shakhnazarov and commentator Semyon Bagdasarov appeared on Kremlin-controlled channel Rossiya 1 demanding the country “stop our military action”.

“Do we need to get into another Afghanistan, but even worse?” Bagdasarov said, according to The Daily Beast.

The comparison of Ukraine to the failed, 10-year Afghan war that raged from 1979 until just two years before the fall of the Soviet Union, was a remarkable risk for both the network and its guests amid the Kremlin’s tightly-controlled propaganda machine.

Mujahideen Freedom fighters, or guerillas, show their resistance to the occupation of Afghanistan by Soviet forces, in 1981.

The Kremlin banned foreign news outlets like BBC and Voice of America, blocked social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and signed into a law a censorship statute that threatens 15-years of prison time for reporters who publish “fake news” that goes against the Russian government’s narrative.

Shakhnazarov reportedly said “public opinion within Russia is changing” as people are shocked by the masses of refugees, the scale of the humanitarian catastrophe, and the fear that economic sanctions will cause unemployment.

“The war in Ukraine paints a frightening picture, it has a very oppressive influence on our society,” the 69-year-old said on an episode of “The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev”.

“Ukraine, whichever way you see it, is something with which Russia has thousands of human links. The suffering of one group of innocents does not compensate for the suffering of other innocent people,” he continued.

His comments stand in stark contrast to Russian broadcasts of the invasion as a “special military operation” aimed at the “denazification” of the country and liberation of Russian speakers facing genocide in the eastern Donbass region.

Mujahideen guerrilla fighters during Soviet occupation in Afghanistan in 1980.

Mujahideen look in a shallow grave at the bodies of three Afghanis, found guilty after a rapid trial, of collaborating with the occupying Russian forces in 1981.

Russia’s Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, has gone as far as to claim Russia never attacked Ukraine and denied the bombing of civilians in the maternity ward of a Ukraine hospital.

It was a claim repeated by the host of “The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev” just two days ago, saying the maternity hospital was “fake” because there was no one in the ward to be injured.

The inclusion of such fierce criticism on the same show represents a marked shift in public sentiment in Russia and suggests the images and horror stories of the war are breaking through Moscow’s whitewashing and censorship.

“We would need to bring in 1.5 million soldiers to control all of it. At the same time, I don’t see any political power that would consolidate the Ukrainian society in a pro-Russian direction,” Shakhnazarov said.

Mujahideen guerrilla fighters look over an anti-aircraft gun in 1988. Picture: London Daily Telegraph.

“The most important thing in this scenario is to stop our military action. Others will say that sanctions will remain. Yes, they will remain, but in my opinion, discontinuing the active phase of a military operation is very important,” he added.

Another guest, Middle East expert Semyon Bagdasarov, agreed the public would turn against the war further as people began to feel the impact of economic sanctions.

“We need to be ready for total isolation. I’m not panicking, just calling things by their proper name,” Bagdasarov said.

“Let Ukrainians do this ‘denazification’ on their own. We can’t do it for them … As for their neutrality, yes, we should squeeze it out of them, and that’s it. We don’t need to stay there longer than necessary,” he added.

Originally published as Russia restricted access to Instagram, YouTube blocks Russian state media