Instagram Head Says Russia Plans to 'Cut 80 Million' Users off From World

Instagram will be blocked in Russia, cutting off nearly 80 million people from the popular social media site, the head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said.

Russia's government body responsible for censorship, Roskomnadzor, has increasingly restricted access to foreign social media platforms and independent news organizations to Russian citizens. Roskomnadzor's most recent action is blocking Instagram access, alleging that the app is being used to call for violence against Russia.

"Messages are circulating on the Instagram social network encouraging and provoking violent acts against Russians, in connection with which the Russian Prosecutor General's Office demanded that Roskomnadzor restrict access to this social network," Roskomnadzor said in a press release.

The restrictions will go into effect at the end of the day Sunday, giving Russian users "an additional 48 hours" to transfer their photos and videos to other social networks and notify their contacts and subscribers, the government body added.

"On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia," Mosseri wrote on Twitter. "This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world as ~80% of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country. This is wrong."

Russia has already blocked access to Facebook and limited access to Twitter in an effort to control what its government considers "fake news." Citing Instagram's parent company Meta to temporarily allow hate speech, Roskomnadzor is said to be considering a proposal to label Meta an"extremist organization," according to Russian television network RT.

Meta spokesman Andy Stone tweeted on Thursday that Meta "made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules on violent speech, such as 'death to the Russian invaders.'"

Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, attempted to clarify the controversial tweet.

"I want to be crystal clear: our policies are focused on protecting people's rights to speech as an expression of self-defense in reaction to a military invasion of their country," Clegg said in a statement. "The fact is, if we applied our standard content policies without any adjustments we would now be removing content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces, which would rightly be viewed as unacceptable."

Clegg noted that the temporary policy only applies to Ukraine and that the company hasn't changed its policies against hate speech targeting Russian people.

Meta has "no quarrel with the Russian people. There is no change at all in our policies on hate speech as far as the Russian people are concerned. We will not tolerate Russophobia or any kind of discrimination, harassment or violence towards Russians on our platform," Clegg added.

YouTube has also made a move against Russia since its war on Ukraine began. It previously paused paid ads in Russia, but has now extended that pause to all monetization features on YouTube and Google.

Newsweek reached out to Instagram for further comment.