- Meta has banned RT and Rossiya Segodnya from its platforms.
- The social media giant says the ban was issued because of “foreign interference activity”.
- Last month the US Justice Department uncovered a Russian influence campaign that leveraged US influencers to sow division among US citizens.
As the US elections on 5th November get closer, social networks (well, at least some of them) are starting to batten down the hatches in a bid to prevent undue influence on the electoral process.
To that end, Meta which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Whatsapp has announced that Russian state media including RT and Rossiya Segodnya would be banned from its platforms. Per a report from Reuters, the ban has been issued because the media outlets reportedly used deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online.
“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.
The ban on Russian state media will be implemented over the next few days, Meta said.
On the back of this news, RT seemed to brush the ban off.
“RT Editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan joked that RT had learned from the Americans, rather than from Russian intelligence officers. ‘Seriously? Did you run out of mirrors?’ she asked, commenting on the American allegations,” RT wrote without addressing the allegations.
Meta’s ban comes weeks after the US Justice Department exposed a Russian influence operation headed by employees of RT. The operation saw $10 million paid to podcasters and right-wing talking heads for evangelising Russian talking points and sowing division in the US ahead of the elections. Podcasters Tim Pool and Dave Rubin maintain that they had no idea they were being paid by Russia. This is despite being paid what many claim is well above market prices for content that drew in a few hundred to a few thousand views at best.
A ban from Meta may make it more tricky to sow propaganda and misinformation but it won’t be impossible. As showcased above, Russia has a will to sow discord and as such, it will find a way to do that even if that means spending millions to fool desperate creators into regurgitating their talking points.
If anything this ban could be worse for Meta than it is for RT and Rossiya Segodnya as it now means Meta has to work harder to detect influence campaigns.
We expect more moves like this as the US gets closer to its elections.
