Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has announced a ban on RT and other Russian state media, citing the outlets’ alleged involvement in foreign interference operations.
“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement on Monday.
“Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity.”
RT, which had 7.2 million Facebook followers before the announcement of the ban, said in a statement that it would continue to get its messages across despite Meta’s action.
“It’s cute how there’s a competition in the West – who can try to spank RT the hardest, in order to make themselves look better. Meta/Facebook already blocked RT in Europe two years ago. Now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world,” an RT spokesperson said.
“Don’t worry, where they close a door, and then a window, our ‘partisans’ – or in your parlance, guerrilla fighters – will find the cracks to crawl through – as by [the] Biden administration’s admission, we are apt at doing.”
Meta’s ban, which will be rolled out on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, comes days after the administration of United States President Joe Biden announced sanctions against RT and other Moscow-controlled media.
The Biden administration also announced the launch of a diplomatic effort to alert the international community to what US officials have described as RT’s role as a “fully-fledged member of the intelligence apparatus” of Moscow.
“Our most powerful antidote to Russia’s lies is the truth,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters on Friday.
“It’s shining a bright light on what the Kremlin is trying to do under the cover of darkness.”
The US Department of Justice earlier this month indicted two RT employees over an alleged scheme to secretly fund a Tennessee-based right-wing media company in order to sow political divisions.
