This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at ZeroHedge.
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has responded to the United States government’s directive urging entities and nations abroad to ban all activities by Russian state broadcaster RT and other Moscow-funded networks.
Meta on Tuesday announced it is booting RT from its apps globally, agreeing with the Biden administration on its charge 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.
The Kremlin responded on Tuesday blasting the move, saying: “With these actions, Meta is discrediting itself… This complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta.” And RT stated that “US Big Tech cannot stop RT from making its voice heard” while further pointing out that “META/Facebook already blocked RT in Europe two years ago, now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world.”
Washington starting last Friday took its war against the state-funded English language broadcaster to a global level, urging all nations to block its broadcasts and close down offices.
Already back in 2022 after being officially branded a foreign agent by the US government which resulted in major platforms dropping its programming, RT America’s offices in the US were shuttered and it was effectively booted from the country. But on Friday the Biden administration unveiled a new effort which seeks to expose RT as part of “malign global intelligence and influence operations”.
So now Meta appears to be dutifully and rather quickly falling 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.”
RT issued a response Tuesday on its international broadcast, which it subsequently released on X. So far, Elon Musk has shown no willingness to ban RT from the platform he owns…
⚡️ Meta has banned several Russian news networks, including RT, for alleged ‘foreign interference activity.’ Before the ban, RT had over 7 million followers on Facebook.
On behalf of our team: Silence us all you want, but there’s no way to silence the truth.
QUESTION MORE! pic.twitter.com/DX4NC1AgL9
— RT (@RT_com) September 17, 2024
Blinken further told reporters Friday, “Our most powerful antidote to Russia’s lies is the truth” and that the administration is “shining a bright light on what the Kremlin is trying to do under the cover of darkness.”
The timing of the public rollout of this major anti-RT initiative is interesting and curious to say the least, given the US is getting closer to the November election, and admin officials and the Democratic party are busy resurrecting the old ‘Russiagate’ talking points against Trump. There are also the usual same election ‘foreign interference’ warnings being loudly sounded by US officials. This has also included talk of China and Iran as supposedly meddling in significant ways. But ultimately this is all part of the ongoing infowar related to the Ukraine conflict.
