American company Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, announced on Monday that it is banning Russian state media from accessing its platforms worldwide to avoid any "foreign interference". This ban was announced a few days after the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken denounced the destabilizing activities of the Russian media Russia Today (RT), which, as he said, has become a "branch" of the Russian intelligence services.
"After careful consideration, we expanded our actions against Russian state media, Rossiya Segodnya, RT and other entities already blocked from our platforms worldwide due to foreign interference actions," Meta said in a statement.
About 15 days ago, US authorities unveiled a series of measures aimed primarily at Russian media, including criminal charges and sanctions, to deal with efforts to interfere in the US election, which they blame on Russia.
RT, which began operations in 2005, is considered by Westerners to be a propaganda organ of the Kremlin.
For its part, the network has commented ironically on the American actions and accused the US of preventing it from functioning as a journalistic organization.
In a Telegram post on Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova commented: "I think a new profession should be created in the US: specialist on sanctions against Russia."
