US-based Meta Group, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced on Monday that it was banning Russia’s main state media group from accessing its platforms worldwide, to prevent any “foreign interference activity”.
• Also read: RT: Russian state media outlet seen in the West as a propaganda tool
• Also read: Meta Dismantles Ineffective Russian Propaganda Operation
The ban comes after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday denounced the destabilizing activities of the Russian group Rossia Segodnia, to which RT belongs, which he said had become a veritable “branch” of Russian intelligence in the world.
“After careful consideration, we have expanded our action against Russian state media,” Meta said in response to an AFP query.
“Rossia Segodnia, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps worldwide due to their foreign interference activities,” the American company said.
About ten days ago, the American authorities unveiled a battery of measures targeting the Russian media group in particular, including criminal prosecutions and sanctions, in response to attempts to interfere in the elections in the United States, which they attribute to Russia.
The State Department then imposed visa restrictions on Rossia Segodnia and its subsidiaries.
Destabilization campaigns
“These Kremlin-backed media outlets are not only playing a clandestine influence role to undermine democracy in the United States, but also to interfere in the sovereign affairs of countries around the world,” Blinken said Friday, citing destabilization campaigns in Moldova, Argentina, France, Germany and Africa.
In the United States, RT notably financed an online content creation company, based in Tennessee, which has published nearly 2,000 videos since the end of 2023, viewed more than 16 million times on YouTube, according to an indictment by the American prosecutor’s office published in early September.
“RT has conducted malicious influence campaigns in countries opposed to its policies, including the United States, with the aim of sowing domestic discord and thereby weakening opposition to the Russian government’s goals,” prosecutors say.
Russia has been the largest source of covert influence operations detected by Meta on its platform since 2017, with its campaigns escalating after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the social media giant’s regular threat reports.
Russia’s state-run RT, launched in 2005, is seen by Westerners as a pure propaganda outlet for the Kremlin. Its website and television channels broadcast in several languages, including English, Spanish, French, German and Arabic.
Links to information
RT’s capabilities were expanded early last year, with new “cyber operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence services,” the U.S. State Department said in a recent statement. “This entity has focused primarily on influence and intelligence operations around the world,” the source said.
According to Washington, RT has also launched an online crowdfunding program in Russia “to provide military support and equipment… to Russian military units in Ukraine,” including from China.
The State Department said it was making diplomatic efforts to inform governments around the world about Russia’s use of RT to conduct covert activities and encourage them to take steps to limit “Russia’s ability to interfere in foreign elections and to obtain weapons for its war against Ukraine.”
Facebook and Instagram have been blocked in Russia since 2022, following a court ruling that labeled Meta an “extremist” as part of the Kremlin’s campaign against Western social media giants.
