Meta has banned several Russian state media outlets over “foreign interference activity,” the tech conglomerate announced Monday. The move comes less than two weeks after the U.S. accused the Kremlin-backed RT of a deceptive influence operation targeted at the American public ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets,” said Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp. “Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity.”
The enforced ban comes days after the U.S. State Department announced sanctions against Russian state media outlets, including RT. As part of the move on Friday, the U.S. designated RT as an “entity with cyber capabilities,” able to engage in “information operations, covert influence, and military procurement.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken alleged military weapons were supplied to Russian soldiers fighting against Ukraine as part of a crowdfunding effort led by RT. The array of equipment included “sniper rifles, suppressors, body armor, night vision equipment, drones, radio equipment, personal weapon sights, diesel generators,” according to Blinken.
The State Department said the foreign-influence operations targeted countries in Europe, Africa, and North and South America.
“We are not taking action against these entities and individuals for the content of their reporting, or even the disinformation they create and spread publicly,” the statement reads. “We are taking action against them for their covert influence activities.”
Earlier this month, the U.S. Justice Department indicted two RT employees for funneling nearly $10 million through foreign shell entities into Tennessee-based digital-content company widely reported to be Tenet Media. According to the allegations, the unidentified media company’s co-founders — believed to be Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donovan — duped at least two U.S. commentators into a lucrative deal to produce video content aligned with Russian interests.
One of the two unnamed influencers was paid $400,000 per month to produce videos on top of a $100,000 signing bonus and an additional performance bonus, according to the indictment unsealed in New York’s Southern District on September 4. The other was allegedly paid $100,000 per video.
Tenet Media boasted six top talents — Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, Tayler Hansen, and Matt Christiansen — before the independent platform was forced to shutter. Neither the co-founders nor the influencers were named in the indictment.
All of the commentators released statements, claiming they were wholly unaware of the alleged Russian-orchestrated scheme to influence Americans. The Justice Department said it was designed to sow division within the U.S. and “to weaken U.S. opposition” to Russian interests, like the Ukraine war.
Prior to the ban that Meta imposed, RT had 7.2 million followers on Facebook and 1 million on Instagram.
The Kremlin responded to the ban on Tuesday, saying “Meta is discrediting itself” through its actions that muddle “the prospects for normalizing our relations” with the social-media parent company.
Meta has taken actions against RT and other Russian state actors in the past by blocking them from running ads on its platforms in February 2022 at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.