Russian news outlet Russia Today (RT) has been banned from Facebook and Instagram by the social media platforms’ parent company Meta.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta reportedly banned RT from its social media platforms under orders from the Biden-Harris administration.
On Tuesday, Meta announced it has banned RT from all of its platforms on a global level.
The move comes in response to a Biden-Harris admin directive urging entities and nations abroad to ban all activities by Russian state broadcaster RT and other Moscow-funded networks.
In the company’s announcement, Meta said it agrees with the Biden-Harris admin’s allegation of deceptive influence operations.
“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,” a Meta spokesman said.
At this point, no RT page or channel will be present on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.
RT’s Facebook page with 7.2 million followers has disappeared as has its Instagram page with one million followers.
On Tuesday, the Kremlin issued a response blasting the move, saying:
“With these actions, Meta is discrediting itself…
“This complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta.”
RT responded by stating: “US Big Tech cannot stop RT from making its voice heard.”
The outlet further pointed out that “META/Facebook already blocked RT in Europe two years ago, now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world.”
Last Friday, Washington D.C. took its war against the state-funded English language broadcaster to a global level.
The Biden-Harris admin urged all nations to block RT’s broadcasts and close down offices.
RT America’s offices in the US were shuttered and it was effectively booted from the country in 2022.
The outlet was officially branded a foreign agent by the U.S. government which resulted in major platforms dropping its programming.
On Friday, the Biden-Harris admin launched a new effort that seeks to expose RT as part of “malign global intelligence and influence operations.”
Meta almost immediately obediently fell in line behind Washington’s directives.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that “we know that RT possessed cyber capabilities and engaged in covert information and influence operations and military procurement.”
US officials are further alleging that Russian intelligence efforts utilized RT to the point of crowdfunding for military gear.
“Under the cover of RT, information produced through this unit flows to Russian intelligence services, Russian media outlets, Russian mercenary groups, and other state and proxy arms of the Russian government.”
On Tuesday, RT issued a response via its international broadcast, which it subsequently released on X.
So far, Elon Musk has shown no willingness to ban RT from X in the United States.
However, X has blocked the account in several European nations following a “legal demand.”
Blinken further told reporters Friday:
“Our most powerful antidote to Russia’s lies is the truth.”
He added that the administration is “shining a bright light on what the Kremlin is trying to do under the cover of darkness.”
https://slaynews.com/news/russias-rt-banned-facebook-under-orders-biden-harris-admin/
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