Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced a global ban on several Russian state media networks, accusing them of using deceptive tactics to conduct influence operations and evade detection on its platforms.
Among the outlets affected are Rossiya Segodnya, RT, and other associated entities.
In a statement, Meta said, “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.” This move marks an intensification of Meta’s stance against Russian state media.
RT’s newsreader, Eunan O’Neill, responded by rejecting the allegations, stating that both RT and Russia “deny the accusations that have been coming en masse against this channel and others in the past number of days.”
The bans will take effect within a few days. Meanwhile, the Russian embassy in Washington and Rossiya Segodnya, which owns the Sputnik news agency, have not yet responded to requests for comment.
This comes amid heightened scrutiny of Russian state media for allegedly attempting to influence political affairs in Western countries.
In the past, Meta had imposed restrictions on Russian state-controlled media by stopping their advertisements and limiting their content reach.
After the invasion of Ukraine, Meta complied with requests from the EU, UK, and Ukraine to block some Russian media outlets in those regions.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government accused RT of paying $10 million to a Tennessee firm to distribute content with hidden Russian government messaging to American audiences.
The indictment claimed the content, often promoting right-wing narratives on issues like immigration and the economy, was secretly controlled by RT employees.
Additionally, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently imposed new sanctions on RT, calling it a “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence apparatus.”
He claimed the network has a unit embedded within it with “cyber-operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence.” RT dismissed Blinken’s remarks as the “US’s latest conspiracy theory” while streaming them live on X (formerly Twitter).
Source-BBC
