Meta bans Russian propaganda outlets on Facebook over alleged 2024 election influence campaign

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, announced that it is banning RT and other Russian government outlets from using its platforms, alleging that they have amplified Moscow’s propaganda using deceptive tactics, the Associated Press reported.

“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.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticized the decision, saying that “such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable” and that “Meta with these actions are discrediting themselves.”

“We have an extremely negative attitude towards this. And this, of course, complicates the prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta,” Peskov told reporters during his daily conference call, the Associated Press reported.

RT, formally known as Russia Today, had 7.2 million followers on Facebook and 1 million followers on Instagram, before the ban. Its parent company, Rossiya Segodnya, is responsible for state news agency RIA Novosti and news branks like Sputnik, CNN reported.

This ban comes after the U.S. Justice Department charged two RT employees for funneling about $10 million into a U.S. company called Tenet Media to project content aligned with Russian interests — a covert influence campaign aimed specifically to sway the minds of American voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election, U.S officials told CNN.