Russia threatens to ban Facebook over data storage

Russia is threatening to block Facebook unless the company complies with the country’s data storage laws, according to reports Tuesday.

A law requires data on the country’s citizens be stored on Russian servers.

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“The law is mandatory for everyone, and therefore there is no doubt — in any case, we will either achieve the law to be implemented, or the company will stop working in Russia, as, unfortunately, happened with LinkedIn,” said Alexander Zharov, the head of the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technology, and Mass Communications, known in Russia as Roskomnadzor.

“There are no exceptions,” he added.

The Russian watchdog banned access to LinkedIn last November after a court ruling found the social networking site broke the same data laws. LinkedIn’s case has set a legal precedent in Russia for U.S. technology firms operating in the country.

Zharov told reporters that Twitter has already given Roskomnadzor an outline for how it plans to comply with the law by mid-2018.

Facebook declined to comment.

Russia’s decision comes one day after China decided to block the Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp. China has banned Facebook since 2009.