Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a major bill into law “criminalizing fake news about the Russian Armed Forces and calls for anti-Russian sanctions,” according to state media outlet, RIA. Additionally, Russia’s department focused on telecommunications and censorship, Roskomnadzor, confirmed the country would be banning access to Facebook in response to Meta’s recent decision to block media outlets like RT News.
While news is still incoming, this sweeping decision is already confirmed to extend to many major Western social media platforms including Twitter, as well as news sites such as BBC and app stores from Apple and Google. The escalation comes after days of ominous pushback from Putin’s government against negative coverage of the country’s invasion of Ukraine, including most recently the limiting of access to certain Wikipedia pages.
