Russia's communications regulator ordered public access to LinkedIn's website to be blocked on Thursday to comply with a court ruling that found the social networking firm guilty of violating data storage laws, Reuters reports.

LinkedIn, headquartered in the United States, is the first major social network to be blocked by Russian authorities, setting a precedent for the way foreign Internet firms operate. It has over 6 million registered users in Russia.

Russian law requires websites that store the personal data of Russian citizens to do so on Russian servers, something communications regulator Roskomnadzor said LinkedIn had not done.

LinkedIn's site will be blocked within 24 hours, the Interfax news agency cited Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky as saying. One Internet service provider, Rostelcom, said it had already blocked access to the site.

Roskomnadzor spokesman Vadim Ampelonsky told Reuters the watchdog had received a letter from LinkedIn's U.S. management on Friday requesting a meeting.

He said he expected the meeting to take place within the next two weeks, but said Roskomnadzor had first to get approval for the meeting from the foreign ministry and the security services because LinkedIn was a foreign company.

LinkedIn commented shorlty for TechCrunch: “LinkedIn’s vision is to create economic opportunity for the entire global workforce. We are starting to hear from members in Russia that they can no longer access LinkedIn,” said a spokesperson. “Roskomnadzor’s action to block LinkedIn denies access to the millions of members we have in Russia and the companies that use LinkedIn to grow their businesses. We remain interested in a meeting with Roskomnadzor to discuss their data localization request.”

The law requiring websites that store the personal data of Russian citizens to do so on Russian servers was introduced in 2014, but never previously enforced.

Facebook and Twitter, both accessible in Russia, are among those that today appear still to keep their data housed out of Russia. Apple and Google reportedly have complied.