Russian court imposes prison sentence on Meta spokesperson

Meta spokesman Andy Stone has been sentenced in absentia by a court to six years in prison for "public dissemination of terrorism".

(Bild: Michael Vi/Shutterstock.com)

Apr 23, 2024 at 8:49 pm CEST

2 min. read

By

Hendrik Vatheuer

This article was originally published in German and has been automatically translated.

A Russian court sentenced a manager of the Meta Group to six years in prison in absentia on Monday. Company spokesman Andy Stone is accused of "promoting terrorist activities, publicly inciting terrorist activities, publicly promoting terrorism or propaganda for terrorism and publicly inciting extremist activities", reports the Reuters news agency.

The ruling was preceded by a lengthy conflict: in January 2022, the Russian Ministry of the Interior had already placed Stone on a wanted list due to several terrorism-related allegations. A Moscow court then issued an arrest warrant for Stone. This event coincided with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In March 2022, Facebook and Instagram were blocked in Russia after a Moscow district court classified Meta as an extremist organization.

Background to the Russian ruling

The background to this is the dispute between Meta and Russia: following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, the US company announced that it would not punish or delete posts and comments on its Facebook and Instagram platforms that were directed against the Russian military and soldiers in certain countries. According to media reports, posts such as "Death to the Russian invaders" or even calls for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin remain permitted for the time being. Only calls for violence against the Russian civilian population remained banned.

The lawyer of the accused, Andy Stone, intends to appeal against the verdict and is quoted by Reuters as saying: "I have asked for acquittal". It seems unlikely that Meta spokesman Stone will end up in a Russian prison anyway. As long as Stone does not travel to Russia or to a country that has an extradition treaty with Russia, he has little to fear from the Russian verdict. Such incidents, in which people are charged or convicted in another country, usually only occur in cases of espionage or hacking offenses.