Meta: Facebook owner Meta bans Russian state media over ‘foreign interference’

Goal He said he is banning Russian state media organization since its social networks platforms, claiming that the media outlets used deceptive tactics to amplify Moscow’s propaganda. The announcement prompted a rebuke from the Kremlin on Tuesday.

The company, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, said late Monday it would implement the ban in the coming days as part of an escalation of its efforts to counter Russian covert influence operations.

“After careful consideration, we are expanding our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media: Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally by foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a prepared statement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov harshly criticised Meta, saying that “such targeted actions against Russian media are unacceptable” and that “Meta is discrediting itself with these actions.”

“We have an extremely negative attitude towards this, and this, of course, complicates the prospects of normalizing our relations with Meta,” Peskov told reporters during his daily conference call.

Meta’s actions come days after the United States announced new sanctions against RT, accusing the Kremlin news outlet of being a key part of Russia’s war machine and its efforts to undermine its democratic adversaries.

US officials claimed last week that RT was working closely with the Russian military and running fundraising campaigns to pay for sniper rifles, bulletproof vests and other equipment for soldiers fighting in UkraineThey also said that RT websites were posing as legitimate news sites but were used to spread disinformation and propaganda in Europe, Africa, South America and elsewhere. Earlier this month, the Biden administration seized Kremlin-run websites and charged two RT employees with covertly providing millions of dollars in funding to a Tennessee-based content creation company to post English-language social media videos promoting pro-Kremlin messages.

Moscow has denied the accusations.

Two years ago, Meta took steps to limit Moscow’s influence online by dismantling a sprawling disinformation network originating in Russia that sought to use hundreds of fake social media accounts and dozens of fake news websites to spread Kremlin talking points about invading Ukraine.

Russian authorities designated Meta as an extremist group in March 2022, shortly after sending troops into Ukraine, and blocked Facebook and Instagram. Both platforms, as well as Elon Musk’s Twitter X, formerly known as Twitter, which is also blocked, were popular among Russians before the invasion and subsequent crackdown on independent media and other forms of critical expression. The social media platforms are now only accessible through virtual private networks.

In April, a Russian court convicted Meta communications director Andy Stone of glorifying terrorism and sentenced him to six years in prison in a snap trial in absentia. The charges against Stone stemmed from his statements in 2022 following Moscow’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 of that year.

Stone, who is based in the United States, announced temporary changes to Meta’s hate speech policy to allow “forms of political expression that would normally violate[its]rules, such as violent speech like ‘death to Russian invaders.'”

In the same statement, Stone added that “credible calls for violence against Russian civilians” would remain prohibited. However, Russian authorities opened a criminal case implicating Stone and other unnamed Meta employees, describing the statement as “unlawful calls for violence and the murder of Russian citizens.”