Facebook’s parent company Meta is banning several Russian state media networks, accusing them of “foreign interference activity.”
RT (formerly Russia Today) and Rossiya Segodnya are among the outlets that will be barred from Mark Zuckerberg’s social media outlets, which also include Instagram and Threads. Meta, which is owned by Mark Zuckerberg, said these outlets had used deceptive tactics to conduct influence operations online.
The Kremlin denied this accusation and described the decision as “unacceptable,” adding that “with this action Meta discredits itself.” However, Russia itself announced plans to ban 81 EU-based media outlets back in June, accusing them of “systematically disseminat[ing] false information about the progress of” its war in Ukraine.
The move will not have much of an impact in EU member states, where RT and other networks have had their broadcasting activities suspended since not long after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Miguel Berger, the German Ambassador to the UK, boasted on rival social media platform Twitter/X that Brussels and London clamped down on the publishing rights of these organisations—and on the rights of Europeans to read them—long ago. He insisted that “we need to take disinformation much more seriously.”
German paper Exxpress noted that Elon Musk’s X now “stands out [from other social media platforms] with a clear commitment to freedom of expression.”
News of the ban comes at the same time as California Governor Gavin Newsom’s passing of election ‘deepfake’ laws, which will make it a requirement for social media platforms to moderate the spread of election-related impersonations powered by artificial intelligence.
Unable to resist the temptation, popular Twitter account ‘Libs of TikTok’ posted a video in which a voice made using AI to sound like Democratic nominee Kamala Harris says “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire—I’m both a woman and a person of colour.” Newsom, the page added, “will be very mad if this video went viral again!”
