Meta said that it is banning some of Russia’s largest state media networks from its platforms for using ‘deception to run an influence campaign and to hide its efforts.’ The ban on the state-run media networks will expand to all Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp platforms, beginning sometime this week.
Meta said in a statement: “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.”
The latest restrictions come after the U.S. State Department earlier this month designated Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other Russian news outlets as foreign missions after accusing two RT employees of taking part in a $10 million scheme to finance a company that published English-language videos on Instagram as well as TikTok, X and YouTube.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded harshly to the ban, telling reporters during a daily conference call that “such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable. Meta with these actions are discrediting themselves. We have an extremely negative attitude towards this. And this, of course, complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta.”
RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and Russia Segodnya (the parent company behind state news agency RIA Novosti and news brand Sputnikalso) also denounced the move. RT shared in a statement: “It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West — who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better.” While Rossiya Segodnya added that Meta’s decision “was not unexpected for us. Meta is a deeply politicized organization. We will continue our work in the countries where we are present and this decision will not affect our work.”
Meta had previously joined other social media outlets to block Russian state media outlets in the European Union, Britain and Ukraine after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also announced last week new sanctions against RT, alleging the Russian government had embedded “a unit with cyber-operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence” within the outlet.
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