With just six weeks to go for the US election, Meta has announced that they are banning some Russian state media accounts. This comes after a recent investigation revealed that Russia-based groups have been trying to influence the opinions of US voters.
Reuters reported this story.
This ban has been strongly criticized by the Kremlin. This is a sharp escalation in measures by the Meta against Russian state media. The company has taken small steps earlier in order to limit the influence of Russian state media. In the past, they’ve blocked them from running ads and reduced the reach of their posts.
“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,” the social media company said in a written statement, according to Reuters.
The company also said that the enforcement of this ban would roll out in a couple of days. The ban will be effective for all social apps from Meta, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday: “Meta is discrediting itself with these actions. Such selective actions against Russian media are unacceptable … This complicates prospects for normalizing our relations with Meta.”
In 2022, Russia banned Instagram and Facebook as they branded Meta an extremist organization. They said that Meta’s hate speech policy was designed to allow users to vent their anger over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia has also criticized Meta’s approach to limit the reach of Russian media and fined the company several times for not removing the content that Russia considered illegal.
