Meta Announces Ban on Russian State Media
Meta says that it will ban Russian state media companies including RT, Rossiya and Segodnya from posting on its platforms. It accused the Russian companies of deceptive influence operations and attempts to evade detection.
“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets: Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a statement.
The group owns Facebook , Facebook Messenger, Threads, Instagram and Whatsapp. Enforcement is expected to come into effect over the next few days.
Prior to the ban, RT had 7.2 million followers on Facebook and 1 million on Instagram, CNN reports.
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“With these actions, Meta is discrediting itself… This complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta,” a Kremlin spokesperson said.
The move to bar Russian state media comes just days after the U.S. government announced sanctions on RT’s parent companies, Rossiya Segodnya and TV-Novosti. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Friday that RT is used by the Russian government for cyber-intelligence and covert influence operations.
“[The Russian companies] are no longer merely fire hoses of Russian propaganda and disinformation. They are engaged in covert influence activities aimed at undermining American elections and democracies, functioning like a de facto arm of Russia ’s intelligence apparatus,” said Blinken. He identified them as currently interfering in next month’s elections in Moldova and helping to source arms for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
It also comes a few days after the U.S. Justice Department announced charges against two RT staff. It accused them of channeling some $10 million into Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based company that creates and amplifies pro-Russian content on YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and Instagram.
The new move by Meta is not the company’s first. It announced restrictions on RT and Sputnik in 2022 , in response to requests from European Union governments. These involved a bar on advertising and pushing the posts by Russian state media lower down their rankings. YouTube banned Russian state media in 2022.