Meta Spokesperson Sentenced To 6 Years Absent By Russian Court

(CTN News) – A military court in Moscow sentenced Andy Stone, the spokesperson of Meta Platforms (META.O), to six years in prison on Monday for “publicly supporting terrorism”, a verdict handed down in absentia by the court, according to RIA news agency.

In addition to the fact that Meta itself has been designated as an extremist group in Russia, its Facebook and Instagram social media platforms have also been banned in the country after it invaded Ukraine in 2022 as part of its campaign against Ukraine.

Meta did not respond to a request for comments from me immediately after I emailed them for comment. There was no immediate response from Stone, Meta’s director of communications, despite numerous attempts to contact him.

Interfax reported that the defendant’s lawyer, Valentina Filippenkova, would appeal the sentence against him, according to the news agency, which was cited by the Russian news services.
In a statement quoted by the newspaper, she claimed that she had been denied an acquittal on the grounds that her request had been denied.

It was announced last year that the Russian Interior Ministry had opened a criminal investigation into Stone, but no specific charges had been revealed against him.

In a report published on RIA today, investigators said Stone had posted online comments in which he supported ‘aggressive, hostile, and violent actions’ against Russian soldiers involved in what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine.

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