After all, blocking Fb isn’t actually about upholding free speech for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has spent years eroding press and on-line freedoms and arresting protesters. However opposite to what Western observers may assume, it additionally isn’t actually about proscribing Russians’ entry to social media — not less than, indirectly. It’s an act of intimidation geared toward bringing different social networks to heel.

In lots of nations, Fb is a dominant social platform, and a blackout of the blue app would deal a stifling blow to on-line communication. That was the case in Myanmar when the navy blocked the social community as a part of a marketing campaign to silence dissent after a coup final yr.

But it surely isn’t the case in Russia, the place Fb is utilized by lower than one in 10 individuals, in response to information from eMarketer. Much more fashionable are VK, a Russian-owned social community modeled on Fb, together with YouTube, the messaging app Telegram, and Fb’s sister apps WhatsApp and Instagram. For the overwhelming majority of Russians, a block on Fb itself ought to have little to no influence on day by day life or communication.

Tellingly, preliminary indications have been that WhatsApp and Instagram would stay accessible to Russians, not less than in the intervening time, regardless that they’re additionally owned by Fb’s guardian firm Meta. So would YouTube, regardless of its personal restrictions on Russian retailers similar to RT and Sputnik. There have been some experiences that Twitter, which isn’t broadly utilized in Russia however serves as an data conduit with the West, was inaccessible in Russia on Friday, although neither the nation nor the corporate confirmed that it had been blocked.

Blocking Fb, then, is much less of a broadside in opposition to social media in Russia than it’s a shot throughout the bow — a dramatic however largely symbolic act that serves as a warning and a risk. As a result of Fb is so outstanding within the West, the block stands to make large headlines outdoors Russia whereas frightening comparatively little outcry from inside. And now the censorship company can level to its arduous line in opposition to Fb in its ongoing disputes with each Meta and different social media firms which have bigger Russian consumer bases.

Certainly, Roskomnadzor stated on its Telegram channel — its personal social media platform of alternative for speaking with the world — that it lately despatched letters to YouTube guardian firm Google and TikTok urgent them on points together with their restrictions on Russian state media and TikTok’s algorithm recommending war-related movies to minors. (Chinese language-owned TikTok, a significant main supply of movies of the battle from Ukraine, has been struggling to navigate its relationships with Russia and the West because the struggle unfolds.) Final month, Russia warned main U.S. tech corporations that they needed to adjust to a brand new legislation requiring them to arrange authorized entities contained in the nation, giving the federal government extra leverage over them.

It’s unclear at this level whether or not Russia’s block on Fb will show non permanent or everlasting — and whether or not will probably be adopted by crackdowns on different social networks within the nation. However it’s in step with a playbook that Russia and different nations have more and more used to attempt to exert management over social media, stated Allie Funk, senior analysis analyst for expertise and democracy at Freedom Home.

“We’re more and more seeing platforms being blocked as a approach for governments to coerce firms to abide by the state’s censorship and surveillance calls for,” Funk stated. She cited Nigeria’s seven-month block of Twitter, which it lifted in January after Twitter agreed to requests that included stationing staff in Nigeria and promising to respect native legal guidelines and tradition. “They’re exploiting their function as gatekeepers to a specific market, and so they’re attempting to make use of the platforms’ energy for their very own political achieve.”

Cat Zakrzewski contributed to this report.