Kremlin slams Meta Platforms over ban on Russian state media outlets, says it’s ‘unacceptable’

Slamming the Meta Platforms’ decision to ban Russian state media outlets from its apps, the Kremlin said on Tuesday that it was “unacceptable” and that the US social media giant had discredited itself with its action.

Meta had accused the Russian state media outlets of “foreign interference activity”. “With this action, Meta discredits itself. Such actions against Russian media are unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

“This complicates prospects for normalising our relations with Meta,” Peskov added.

On Monday, Meta said it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media outlets from its platforms. “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 Platforms said in a statement.

It added that the enforcement of the ban would roll out in the coming days.

Meta’s social media platforms include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

In 2022, Moscow branded Meta an “extremist” organisation and blocked Facebook and Instagram over changes in Meta’s hate speech policy that allowed users to vent their anger over Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Previously, Russia had also criticized the US social media company's efforts to limit the reach of Russian media and fined it several times for not removing content in Russia that it considers illegal.

According to news agency Reuters, Meta said it had seen Russian state-controlled media try to evade detection in their online activities in the past and expected them to continue trying to engage in deceptive practices going forward.

Earlier this month, the US administration had seized Kremlin-run RT websites. It charged its two employees of covertly providing millions of dollars in funding to a Tennessee-based content creation company to publish English-language social media videos pushing pro-Kremlin messages.

On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that countries should treat the activities of Russian state broadcaster RT as they do covert intelligence operations. Moscow has rejected the allegations.