Russia permanently bans Mark Zuckerberg — and Morgan Freeman — from entering the country

Mark Zuckerberg in front of the Facebook logo
Mark Zuckerberg in front of the Facebook logo (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

  • Russia has banned almost 1,000 people from entering its country for life.
  • Mark Zuckerberg is just one of the people no longer welcome in Russia.
  • Morgan Freeman is one name that you might not expect to see on the list, but it's there.

Russia has officially permanently banned almost 1,000 Americans from entering the country. While some of the names won't be a surprise to most, some are more on the odd side of things.

The country updated its list of people that are no longer welcome in its country this past weekend, adding the likes of Meta's Mark Zuckerberg as well as President Biden and Vice President Harris. The Washington Post reports that the names have been added over their response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But some names have been added despite their inability to do that — including Sen. John McCain who died in 2018.

Russia says that the list is a result of "hostile actions taken by Washington" and its work to "incite Russophobia."

It isn't just politicians and tech firm CEOs that have found themselves on the list, either. Hollywood star Morgan Freeman found himself namechecked — likely thanks to a documentary he narrated that looked into Russian election interference. Notably, former President Donald Trump does not appear on the list of people Vladimir Putin doesn't want to see set foot on Russian soil.

As for Zuckerberg, it's easy to see why he's been targeted. Facebook initially kicked two pro-Kremlin news outlets off its platform in March, a move which later saw Russia work to ban Meta's services including WhatsApp and Instagram. Meta, Facebook, and especially Zuckerberg are far from popular in the country right now.

Russia has also, predictably, banned a number of journalists from entering the country for good including ABC News' George Stephanopoulos and Bret Stephens of The New York Times.

Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.