Russian state media outlet RT banned by Facebook “for foreign interference”

Enlarge / Russia President Vladimir Putin presents flowers to editor-in-chief of Russian broadcaster RT Margarita Simonyan after awarding her with the “Order of Alexander Nevsky” during a ceremony at the Kremlin in Moscow on May 23, 2019. (credit: Getty Images | Evgenia Novozhenina)

Meta yesterday announced a ban on Russian state media outlets RT (formerly Russia Today) and Rossiya Segodnya, taking action three days after the US government imposed sanctions on the outlets for covert influence activities.

“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 provided to Ars. Meta is the owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.

Meta already blocked RT and Rossiya Segodnya’s Sputnik network across Europe in March 2022, following a ban imposed by European Union government officials. YouTube blocked the channels worldwide. At the time, Vladimir Putin’s government was telling Russian media outlets not to call the invasion of Ukraine “an attack,” “invasion,” or “declaration of war.”