Russia starts blocking and throttling Western tech platforms including Facebook and Twitter, cutting itself off from the rest of the world's internet like China

• Russia's tech regulator decided to block Facebook and Twitter, vaguely claiming "discrimination."
• Facebook's Nick Clegg said move is about keeping Russians "cut off" from information and activism.
• Russia's regulator has also complained of recent actions by YouTube and TikTok.

Russia is beginning to block or limit access to Western technology platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, cutting itself and its citizens off from the rest of the world's internet in drastic fashion as the Ukraine invasion intensifies and criticism increases.

The moves are similar to what's been done by China in recent years and is another blow to the dream of a open, global internet.

Roskomnadzor, the country's tech and communications regulator, said Friday it has fully blocked access to Facebook, owned by the US tech giant Meta Platforms. The regulator did not specify if access would also be restricted to Instagram or WhatsApp, which are also part of Meta.

Twitter has been throttled in Russia over the past week, too, and on Friday local Russian media outlets began to report the platform was also blocked by Roskomnadzor. YouTube went down in the country recently, sparking speculation that the world's largest video sharing platform was being blocked or throttled. Between Thursday and Friday, Roskomnadzor also publicly took issue with Google and its affiliate YouTube, as well as TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance. 

The regulator said it sent a letter to Google complaining of ads on YouTube allegedly containing "inaccurate content" with the intent of "misinforming the Russian internet audience" about the country's invasion of Ukraine. Google responded by stopping all ads in the region.

As for TikTok, Roskomnadzor said the platform removed certain videos from state-run news site RIA Novosti. Such actions violated "free distribution of information," it said, noting it had recorded other acts of alleged "disrimination" against Russian media and public figures by the site. A representative of TikTok did not respond to a request for comment. 

Nick Clegg, Facebook's president of global affairs, said Russia's move to block the platform served only to ensure that the Russian people were "cut off from reliable information" and "deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out."

"We will continue to do everything we can to restore services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action," he added.

In a press release, Roskomnadzor accused Facebook of about two dozen instances of "discrimination" since 2020. The regulator also cited Facebook's recent decision to restrict user access to Russian government-backed news outlets such as Sputnik and Russia Today.

The country's decision to block Facebook comes more than a week after it began throttling, or making it difficult for users in the country to access the world's largest social media service. Clegg said at the time it had refused Russia's demands that it stop fact checking posts about the invasion from state-run media, like RT and Sputnik. Ukrainian officials have been calling on big tech companies to act against Russia in recent days.

Russian access to any platforms is likely to worsen, as connectivity to the internet in the country is starting to be affected amid the invasion. Cogent Communications, a multinational internet service provider based in Washington, said Friday it was cutting off its services in Russia, where it is the second largest carrier in the country. David Schaffer, Cogent's CEO, told The Washington Post he didn't want the company being used for "outbound cyber attacks or disinformation."

Russia's move to block Facebook is similar to China's efforts to create its own heavily censored version of the internet. That effort goes back more than a decade. In 2009, China blocked Facebook as part of a crackdown on protests and riots at the time. It blocked Twitter soon far and blocked Google in 2014.