- Russian channels banned due to interference
- Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities will be banned for foreign interference
- Russia is known for spreading propaganda content to influence people
Russian channels banned due to interference
Meta announced on Monday evening that it is removing Russian state-owned media channels from its apps worldwide due to "foreign interference".
The ban was announced after the United States accused the state-owned news agency RT and its employees of giving $10 million to Russian state-owned news outlets through shell companies. The EU has also used US dollars to finance opinion-forming campaigns on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube.
"After careful consideration, we have expanded the measures we currently apply to state-owned Russian media channels," explained Meta.
Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities will be banned for foreign interference
The sanctions, announced after Russia's 2022 attack on Ukraine, have forced RT to cease official operations in the UK, Canada, the European Union, and the United States.
US prosecutors quoted RT's editor-in-chief as saying that the agency had created an "entire empire of clandestine projects" designed to shape public opinion among "audiences in the West".
One of the secret projects financed and operated an online content development company in Tennessee.
Russia is known for spreading propaganda content to influence people
Russia is the most prolific author of the clandestine opinion-forming operations neutralized on Meta platforms since 2017, and its efforts to spread influence online have intensified since the invasion of Ukraine, as evidenced by the social networking giant's regular threat reports.
Meta has already banned the Russian Federal News Agency to prevent foreign interference by the Russian Internet Research Agency.
The US State Department announced in September that it had launched a diplomatic effort to inform governments around the world about Russia's use of RT as a tool for covert activities and to encourage them to take steps to limit "Russia's ability to interfere in foreign elections and to acquire weapons for use in the war in Ukraine".
Based on ELTA reports
