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Users of Meta won’t be prosecuted in Russia, senator assures

It is stressed that posting commercials on Meta platforms might be targeted by the law, since that "actually means supporting an extremist website"

MOSCOW, October 12. /TASS/. Users of Instagram and Facebook, the social media owned by US corporation Meta (outlawed as an extremist organization in Russia), will not be prosecuted in Russia, the head of a Federation Council commission told TASS on Wednesday.

"As a news outlet, Meta was placed on the list of extremist organizations because of notorious slogans published on Meta. Users of Meta products will not be prosecuted, they can read publications on Meta," said Alexey Pushkov, who chairs the commission on information policy and cooperation with the media at the upper house of Russia’s parliament.

However, posting commercials on Meta platforms might be targeted by the law, since that "actually means supporting an extremist website," he warned. Lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky told TASS earlier that though there was no established practice of banning Meta products in Russia, individuals were allowed to use those for private purposes, while any financial operations would be viewed as the financing of an extremist organization.

Russia’s financial watchdog, Rosfinmonitoring, on Tuesday put the US tech giant on its list of extremists and terrorists. The corporation was listed under the name of Meta Platforms Inc. In March, Moscow’s Tverskoy Court declared the social networks — Instagram and Facebook — owned by Meta, extremist and banned them throughout Russia. The ban does not cover the Meta-owned messenger WhatsApp.

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