The American group Meta announced on Monday, September 16, that it will ban Russian state media, such as Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, from accessing its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads), to prevent any “foreign interference activity”The decision comes two weeks after the US Justice Department accused RT on Wednesday 4 September of orchestrating disinformation operations targeting the US presidential election.
Sanctions that, despite their effectiveness, will not put an end to the “information guerrilla” carried out by these means, according to Maxime Audinet, a doctor in Slavic studies at the University of Paris-Nanterre and a researcher at the Institute for Strategic Research at the Military School (Irsem). A specialist in the strategies of influence of contemporary Russia, he is the author of A state-influenced media outlet: Investigation into the Russian channel RT (INA, 2021).
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken described to RT on Friday, September 13, as ” branch “ of Russian intelligence in the world. Do you share this analysis?
In any case, RT, like Sputnik, has become a major player in Russian foreign policy. Both media outlets, funded by the Russian state, receive around 450 million euros a year in budget. But I prefer to talk about state media, sometimes in collaboration with the intelligence services, because they are obviously not hermetic worlds. RT was born in 2005, with an editorial line very focused on Russia. It was in 2008, during the Russo-Georgian war, that a more offensive and critical line of the West appeared. Since the invasion of Ukraine, the propaganda dimension has been accentuated and they unambiguously use elements of official language and stories. These are media outlets influenced by the state, operating in an authoritarian context.
Three days after Blinken’s remarks, Meta banned content from RT, Sputnik and Russian state media on its platforms. What does this decision signal and what could be the consequences?
This shows, first of all, that American institutions are much more reactive and prepared to counter this type of interference phenomenon than during the 2016 elections. It is also a sign that Meta is now taking the moderation of this content seriously, after having wandered for a long time. The decision is likely to have far-reaching consequences for the audiences of RT and Sputnik, who depended on these platforms to broadcast their content to audiences abroad. The impact will be strong in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and India, where Facebook is a widely used platform and which are areas particularly targeted by these media. However, this obviously does not sign their digital death warrant: these actors have adapted to the restrictions imposed since 2022, following the invasion of Ukraine. Since then, mutual sanctions between the West and Russia have produced a form of digital decoupling, a partition of Russian and Western information spaces.
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