UrBC, Moscow, April 19, 2018. Roskomnadzor (RKN) is prepared to block the social network Facebook in Russia before the end of the year if the company management fails to comply with the Russian legislative requirements, Head of RKN Alexander Zharov said in an interview to Izvestia.

‘We’ll be looking into their doings until the end of the year, and there are some regulations the company has to comply with: Russian nationals’ databases must be stationed within the country, no unlawful information must be present within the resource (Facebook is already falling behind on this one), and a few other key points that need to be attended to. If some of these, or none of these requirements, are complied with, or if the Russian Government receives no notice of how the company intends to take proper action, we’ll have to consider banning the social network,’ Zharov said.

According to Zharov, RKN officials last met with Facebook management in February 2018. He said the meetings took place every six months or so.

‘I keep hearing that Zharov lets Facebook have its way because of some special relationship of sorts. I do not have a special relationship with the company, and our position was reiterated firmly when we last met with the social network representatives in February,’ Zharov said.