Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, has banned the news television broadcaster RT (“Russia Today”) and other Russian state media outlets from being present on their platforms, under the justification that they participate in interference operations in other countries.
“Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps worldwide for foreign interference activities,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement, which was shortly rejected by the Kremlin.
“Meta discredits itself. Such targeted actions against Russian media are unacceptable,” Russian regime spokesman Dmitry Peskov said at his daily press conference.
Peskov added that Meta’s actions “complicate the prospects for normalizing relations” with the Russian authorities, who have already blocked access to Facebook and Instagram in this country after the outbreak of war in Ukraine.
Meta’s decision comes days after the United States government announced sanctions against RT and other Moscow-controlled media outlets.
President Joe Biden’s administration also announced the launch of a diplomatic effort to alert the international community to what U.S. officials described as the role of RT as a “full member of the intelligence apparatus”.
“Our most powerful antidote to Russia’s lies is the truth,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday.
The US Department of Justice recently announced that it has charged two employees of the RT of funneling nearly $10 million to an American company to create and amplify content aligned with Russian interests during the U.S. presidential election campaign.
RT had 7.2 million followers on Facebook and one million followers on Instagram before the ban was announced, according to US media.
According to the broadcaster CNNexecutives from Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet, which owns Google, have been summoned to testify next Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee about their platforms’ work in combating foreign threats to the US elections.
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