Russian government has threatened Facebook with a ban if they do not comply with a law that requires websites with personal data of Russian citizens to store them on Russian servers.

According to Telegraph, Russian communications watchdog Roskomnadzor has given Facebook until 2018 to comply with the law or else it will be booted out of the country.

LinkedIn had in 2016 been blocked in Russia, after it was found guilty of the same offence.

Alexander Zharov, head of Roskomnadzor, said it is necessary that everyone complies with the rule. He said:

Everyone needs to abide by the law. In 2018, everything will be as it should be for sure.

In any case, we will either get the law implemented or the company will cease to work on the territory of the Russian Federation as unfortunately happened to LinkedIn. There can’t be any exceptions here.

We understand clearly that Facebook has a significant number of users on the territory of the Russian Federation.

On the other hand, we understand that this is not a unique service, and that there are other social media.