Russia leaves 80 million users without access to Instagram
As the conflicts between Ukraine and Russia continue, technology platforms announce actions to try to moderate content by avoiding fake news and hoaxes . In this context, Russia has now left all users in the country without access to Instagram.
Russia announced its plans to ban access to Instagram last week, saying this is a response to Meta’s decision to allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russian soldiers, following the invasion of Ukraine.
The origin of the veto on access to Instagram in Russia
The conflict between Russia and Meta began a few days ago, when the country’s government approved a bill that criminalizes the deliberate dissemination of what Moscow considers to be false reports.
While this was going on, Facebook and Instagram blocked two major local outlets like Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik in both the European Union and the UK, together prompting an immediate response from the Russian communications regulator which completely blocked access to Facebook from this country.
Roskomnadzor, the Russian watchdog, said that there had been at least 26 cases of discrimination against Russian media by Facebook since October 2020, while Nick Clegg, president of global affairs for Meta, said that blocking the platform would deprive “millions of Russians from getting reliable information, from communicating with friends and family and it would mean that they would be silenced.” At the moment Russia adds to the veto to Instagram. Check out more on our blog.
Faced with this action by the Russian government, Adam Mosseri, director of Instagram, assured in a tweet that this decision ” will separate 80 million users in Russia from each other and from the rest of the world, since ~80% of people in Russia follow a Instagram account outside of your country. This is bad”
VKontakte, Telegram and Odnoklassniki: the Russian social networks that could host influencers
While this was happening, over the weekend Russian influencers and personalities posted farewell messages to their Instagram followers, encouraging them to follow them on other platforms or use a VPN in order to avoid the ban.
In any case, although according to data from Statista, 37% of Russians use Facebook, while 35% say they are TiktTok users and 14% log into Twitter regularly, VKontakte is the most popular social network in the world. country, with 73% of those surveyed as users.
It is true that YouTube and Instagram are currently quite popular among Russian users, with 68% and 59% adoption respectively, VKontakte has more than 650 million registered users and an estimated 97 million monthly active users , while its interface is suitable in 85 different languages.
Other of the most popular social networks in Russia are Odnoklassniki, which in 2021 ranked fourth among social networks and with 42% preference of Russian users, with Moy Mir in third place among the most important Russian social networks, all belonging to the Mail.ru parent company.
On the other hand, Rutube, owned by Gazprom Media, is seen as YouTube’s competitor in Russia , and is likely to see an uptick in user consumption within its territory, if censorship levels don’t drive creators away. content of this platform.
And entering instant messaging, Telegram, very similar in operation to WhatsApp, is positioned among the favorites, despite the fact that in 2018 the Russian government prohibited it, since in 2020 the sanction was lifted, and although WhatsApp with 77 million users It remains the preferred messaging app for Russian users, currently Telegram has 38 million users.