According to internet monitoring agency GlobalCheck, Russia’s announced ban on Instagram went into force today, making the social media platform inaccessible to the vast majority of the country’s population.
In response to parent company Meta’s decision to allow Facebook and Instagram users in various countries to call for violence against Russian soldiers following the country’s invasion of Ukraine, the country announced measures to ban Instagram last week. In order to control the flow of information about the conflict, Russia has gradually banned access to websites such as Facebook and Twitter. “This decision will shut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the globe,” Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri warned in a tweet last Friday. “80 percent of people in Russia follow an Instagram account outside their country.” This is incorrect.”
Russian Instagram stars sent out farewell messages to their followers over the weekend, advising people to follow them on other platforms or use VPN software to get over the government’s ban.
According to the Washington Post, Karina Nigay, a Russian fashion celebrity, decried the restriction in a live broadcast. “This is my work,” Nigay stated. “Imagine you’ve been dismissed from your work and aren’t getting paid at all, but you still have bills to pay for your family and, if you have subordinates, your team, and you don’t have any money to pay them.”
Later, Nigay stated that the restriction would actually benefit Russian fashion firms. “Listen, to people who are writing all sorts of crap, all these propaganda articles, I honestly don’t give a shit,” she said in response to commentators on her video who were unfairly comparing her concerns to the situation of Ukrainians.
Instagram has also given Russians, notably affluent billionaires and their families, a forum to speak out against the war. Sofia Abramovich, the daughter of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, uploaded an anti-Putin Instagram post before deleting it, while rich Russian banker Oleg Tinkov said the conflict was “unthinkable and irresponsible.”
