Security News > 2022 > October > Russia labels Meta an 'extremist' org, sends legal threats to users
Meta was officially designated as a terrorist organization for the first time in Russia in March 2022, when a Moscow court claimed the world's most popular social media platform hosted what they ruled as misinformation.
Adopting the "Terrorist" classification for Meta by the Federal State marks a new development, leaving millions of Russian users of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp unsure about what this means.
Russian internet rights organization Roskomsvoboda consulted its lawyers on the meaning of Meta's inclusion in Rosfinmonitoring's list, and they said this development shouldn't prevent users from continuing to use the social media service.
Russian lawyer Pavel Chikov is painting a different picture on Telegram today, saying that the prosecutor's office has now started distributing warnings to users of Facebook and Instagram, who are threatened with administrative and criminal liability for posting on the platforms.
In a Telegram post today, OVD-Info reminds users that these notices are neither legally binding nor have any legal basis, so they may as well be ignored.
Illegal as these notices may be, it does not diminish Russian users' fears, as the authorities have already targeted notable Instagram users in Russia, prosecuting them for posting advertisements on the platform.