TECH: Kremlin law bans facebook in Russsia for‘ extremist activity’.

Mark Zucker­berg’s social net­works were ear­li­er banned in the coun­try before this month, but now a court in Moscow has esca­lat­ed matters.

It’s the first time the broad law has been used against a for­eign tech company.

In the his­to­ry, it was reserved for the likes of the Tal­iban and Islam­ic State.

Pros­e­cu­tors con­clud­ed that the com­pa­ny” inten­tion­al­ly allowed hate speech against Rus­sians, which cre­at­ed an option­al real­i­ty in which any pro-Russ­ian posi­tion was sup­pressed and hate was incited”.

But What­sApp, which Meta also owns, has man­aged to avoid being banned.

With an esti­mat­ed 67million users a year ago, some experts told Wired they sup­pose What­sApp was spared to stop an roar among Russians.

By com­par­i­son, inves­ti­ga­tor Insid­er Intel­li­gence esti­mates that Face­book had just7.5 mil­lion users in the country.

“The deci­sion does­n’t apply to the exer­tion of Meta’s mes­sen­ger What­sApp, due to its lack of func­tion­al­i­ty for the pub­lic dis­so­lu­tion of information,“the court declared.
Recent data sug­gests that rival Telegram has over­hauled What­sApp as Rus­si­a’s most pop­u­lar mes­sag­ing app.

Despite the ban on Face­book and Insta­gram, the court said any­one in Rus­sia caught enter­ing them will“not be sued”.