Russia Threatens Bans Against Facebook, Twitter, Google Over Censorship Breaches

Facebook has faced increasing pressure as the Russians threaten to ban their social media platform if they continue publishing “extremist material.”


The warning came on Monday, in the form of a letter to executives, warning the US companies Facebook, Twitter and Google that they would face sanctions if alleged “illegal activities” continued, reports The Guardian.
The Russian communications watchdog claims under their laws on blogging, that extremist materials – most of which refer to already deleted pages, are breaching the “bloggers law.” The law requires bloggers to register their real identities.
Furthermore, Russian authorities are claiming that the three companies are yet to provide the required data of daily visitors to targeted users’ pages, most of which have a daily visit of over 3,000 visitors.
If the three sites didn’t start limiting “information containing calls to participate in mass rioting, extremist activities … unsanctioned public events,” Maksim Ksenzov, the watchdog’s deputy director, warned it would “limit access to the information resource where that information is posted.”


In light of the censorship that Facebook has recently been under scrutiny for, including bans against Anonymous’ members, one wonders if the money is more important to the social media giant than freedom.