Google bans African media over alleged links to Russia

Pan-African digital media organization African Stream has accused Google of censorship after the American tech giant locked it out of the Gmail workspace. The US government recently claimed the outlet is a Russian disinformation tool.

The move on Tuesday resulted in the loss of access to two years of emails and files stored in the Google cloud storage facilities, the outlet said in a statement.

“Google did not provide any credible reason for banning us other than saying we ‘violated Google Workspace policy,’ which includes ‘sending spam or using the account for any kind of fraud,’” it stated.

African Stream has denied engaging in any of the alleged activities. “We can only conclude they took us down based on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s unsubstantiated allegation on 13 September that we are ‘Kremlin propagandists,’” it added.

During a press briefing last month, Blinken claimed that RT “secretly” operates the outlet, which has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, across a variety of social media platforms. He alleged that while the organization’s stated goal is to give a voice to Africans both at home and abroad, “in reality, the only voice it gives is to Kremlin propagandists.” 

On Tuesday, African Stream reported that major tech companies had begun cracking down on it across platforms “shortly” after the US official’s comments. Its YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok channels have been removed, and Stripe, a financial services provider, has blacklisted it.

“The US presents itself as a bastion of democracy. Integral to any healthy democracy is media freedom – allowing different viewpoints to be heard. But time and again, this basic ideal has been ridden roughshod over if it suits Washington,” African Stream wrote on X (formerly Twitter).

“No evidence has been put forward to support the allegations made against us, yet we are being silenced on the biggest social-media platforms. Why do Africans articulating their concerns pose such a threat to the Western establishment?” it added.

READ MORE: As the West tries to silence RT, the Global South speaks out

Washington launched a major crackdown on RT in September, accusing the channel of “functioning as a de facto arm of [Russian] intelligence.” US State Department official Jamie Rubin blamed RT’s reporting for the fact that much of the world has not sided with Ukraine as Washington expected it to.

Following the allegations, YouTube terminated five right-wing political channels, including Tenet Media, linked to what the US Department of Justice (DOJ) claims is a Russian effort to sow division in America and influence its domestic landscape. The DOJ had previously charged two Russians, identified as RT employees, with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), money laundering, and illegally funneling millions of dollars to US-based entities to promote a so-called ‘Russian narrative’ on various politically charged issues.

Moscow has branded the US sanctions against RT and other news outlets as a declaration of war on free speech.