Meta to ban RT, other Russian state-run media outlets globally

Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Meta said on Tuesday it will ban some of Russia's largest state media networks from its platforms, including Facebook, for using deception to run an influence campaign and to hide its efforts.

The ban on the state-run media networks will expand to all Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp platforms and will start sometime this week.

"After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets," Meta said in a statement. "Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other related entities are now banned from our apps globally for foreign interference activity."

Meta had previously joined other social media outlets to block Russian state media outlets in the European Union, Britain and Ukraine after the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The latest restrictions come after the U.S. State Department earlier this month designated Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other Russian news outlets as foreign missions after accusing two RT employees of taking part in a $10 million scheme to finance a company that published English-language videos on Instagram as well as TikTok, X and YouTube.

The company, identified by CNN as Tenet Media, concentrated on using right-wing, Trump-supporting influencers. Many of those influencers released statements saying they were victims of the Russian-led scam.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week also announced new sanctions against RT, alleging the Russian government had embedded "a unit with cyber-operational capabilities and ties to Russian intelligence" within the outlet.

RT which has 7.2 million followers on Facebook and another 1 million, dismissed the allegations as the United States' "latest conspiracy theory.

The Kremlin condemned Meta's decision to ban the platforms Tuesday.

"With these actions, Meta is discrediting itself," it said. "This complicates the prospects of normalizing our relations with Meta."