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What Russia's Meta listing meant for business
Summary
A look back at the 12 October 2022 backdrop: a corporate blacklisting a day earlier and a deadly strike on a marketplace in Avdiivka.
What did it mean for commerce when Russia put a global technology company on a list of "terrorists and extremists"? On 12 October 2022, that question sat alongside a grim reminder of what war does to everyday trade.
On 11 October 2022, Russia added Meta Platforms, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to its list. The stated grounds were that the company tolerated Russophobia and allowed calls to violence against Russians. The listing placed a major commercial platform in the same category as groups designated for terrorism or extremism.
On 12 October 2022, Russian forces struck a marketplace in Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast. At least seven civilians were killed and eight others injured. A marketplace is a place of ordinary local commerce, and the strike was reported as part of a wider pattern of attacks on civilians in the invasion.
The two events were different in kind: one a legal designation against a corporation, the other a deadly attack on a place where people buy and sell. Together, they show how the war's economic dimension was being felt in 2022, through restrictions on companies and through damage to civilian economic life on the ground.
