A row between Meta and the Kremlin erupted on Tuesday when the owner of Facebook announced it is to ban key Russian state media organizations because of alleged use of its social media platforms for Moscow’s propaganda.
Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, is most tellingly targeting the news outlet Russia Today, now called RT, with the ban rolled out globally over the coming days to help curb Russia’s influence over foreign social media users.
“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.
Rossiya Segodnya is the parent company behind state news agency RIA Novosti and news brands including Sputnik. Neither company responded immediately to a request for comment.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov (left) and Russian Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov (right) wait before a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Career diplomat Dmitry Peskov is known as a fierce defender of Russia’s international position, particularly over the war with Ukraine.
Kristina Kormilitsyna/AP
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov lashed out, saying that “such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable,” and that “Meta with these actions are discrediting themselves.”
“We have an extremely negative attitude toward this. And this, of course, complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta,” Peskov told reporters.
In a news article, RT said its chief editor, Margarita Simonyan, who has previously bragged on television about Kremlin efforts to destabilize Western democracy, joked about the latest ban.
“Seriously? Did you run out of mirrors?” she said.
Russian broadcaster RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan attending a Kremlin event. She is a Moscow firebrand outspoken in advocating for President Putin.
Valeriy Sharifulin/AP
Meta’s ban comes just days after the U.S. announced a fresh round of sanctions on RT, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemning the media organization during Friday’s press conference.
“RT wants its new covert intelligence capabilities, like its long-standing propaganda disinformation efforts, to remain hidden.”
“Our most powerful antidote to Russia’s lies is the truth. It’s shining a bright light on what the Kremlin is trying to do under the cover of darkness,” Blinken said.
The State Department accused RT of working alongside the Russian military, including raising money through large crowdfunding platforms for the purchase of weapons, armor and other equipment for use in the nation’s invasion of Ukraine. Moscow rejected the allegations.
Since 2020 Meta has been labeling content from state media and in 2022 it escalated the action by blocking state media from running ads and deprioritizing content from users’ feeds.
Moscow responded shortly after its troops first crossed into Ukraine. In March 2022 the Kremlin declared Meta an extremist group and blocked both Facebook and Instagram, which were popular with Russians at the time.
The platforms joined Elon Musk‘s X, formerly known as Twitter, which is also blocked in Russia—although users in Russia can still access these through virtual private networks.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press
