Facebook escalated its dispute with the Russian government, which had been smoldering for days, over the weekend: the social network announced a global advertising ban for Russian state media on its platform on Saturday.

It should also no longer be possible for these media to earn money on Facebook.

As security chief Nathaniel Gleicher also wrote on Twitter, the company wants to label other Russian state media as such.

Facebook introduced such references to state control of media organizations almost two years ago.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

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Catherine Wagner

Business correspondent for Russia and the CIS based in Moscow.

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Other American online platforms also announced restrictions at the weekend: The video service YouTube, which belongs to the Internet group Google, said that given the "extraordinary circumstances in Ukraine", several channels would no longer be able to generate advertising sales, including "Russian channels that have been affected by the latest sanctions".

Youtube will also significantly limit recommendations for such channels.

At the request of the government in Ukraine, access to the channel of the Russian state broadcaster RT in the country would also be restricted.

Twitter also announced restrictions, but they were not specifically aimed at Russian state media.

misleading information

The short message service announced that it would temporarily stop all advertising in Ukraine and Russia.

This is done to give important public safety information more prominence and to ensure that advertising does not distract from it.

The company said it is monitoring the risks surrounding the war in Ukraine, which includes stopping the spread of false and misleading information.

Before Facebook stopped ads, the Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor announced on Friday that it would make access to the social network in the country more difficult.

Allegedly in response to Facebook imposing restrictions on the accounts of four Russian media outlets, including the Defense Ministry TV channel and the state news agency Ria Novosti, as well as two pro-Kremlin news portals.

In doing so, the Internet company “violated the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens”.

Since then, videos on Facebook in Russia have been remarkably slow to load, suggesting that the restrictions are actually intended to stop the distribution of videos from Ukraine,

which refute Russia's account of a successful "military operation" without fail and its own casualties - such as the video of a missile hitting a Kiev apartment building or the interrogation of captured Russian soldiers.

Roskomnadzor is trying to ban such information from the Russian Internet - the media may only use "official sources of information", i.e. those of the Russian state, otherwise they too are threatened with blocking and fines.

According to Facebook, the dispute with the Russian authorities was different than Roskomnadzor portrays.

Accordingly, the Russian government has asked the group to no longer have the content of the accounts of the four Russian media checked for accuracy and to no longer provide them with warnings.

Meta refused, so the government has restricted Facebook usage in Russia, Nick Clegg, who is responsible for political and regulatory affairs at parent company Meta, tweeted.

Twitter also announced on Saturday that the service had been restricted for "some" users in Russia.

Even before the war in Ukraine, the pressure on American Internet companies in Russia had increased significantly.

As recently as December, a Russian court again fined Google and Facebook for failing to remove “banned content” from their platforms.

Google's fine was set at the equivalent of around 76 million euros and was the highest it has ever been in such a case.

Facebook, which has not paid the fines for a long time or only partially, was ordered to pay 21 million euros.

Over the past year, the government has also imposed sanctions on Twitter, slowing down the mobile service for its users, for content deemed banned due to increasingly restrictive legislation in Russia.