US Big Tech cannot stop RT from making its voice heard, the Russian news outlet proclaimed on Tuesday, following Meta’s decision to ban the network from its platforms.
On Monday, the company behind Facebook and Instagram announced that it would remove several news brands, including RT, from its applications over the coming days. It cited alleged “foreign interference activity” to justify the move, aligning with accusations made last week by the US government.
RT commented on the attack against it by saying the contrast between the West’s declared support for fair competition and the actions aimed at undermining it was “cute.”
“META/Facebook already blocked RT in Europe two years ago, now they’re censoring information flow to the rest of the world,” the statement added, referring to the US company’s compliance with an EU-wide ban on RT, imposd unilaterally by the bloc following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
”Don’t worry, where they close a door, and then a window, our ‘partisans’ (or in your parlance, guerrilla fighters) will find the cracks to crawl through – as by your own admission we are apt at doing,” it said.
Announcing the latest round of sanctions on Russian media last Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused RT of “functioning as a de facto arm of [Russian] intelligence.”
State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin blamed RT for the fact that “so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be.”
He blamed “the broad scope and reach of RT, where propaganda, disinformation, and lies is spread to millions if not billions around the world” for outcomes unfavorable to Washington’s foreign policy goals.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused the US of waging an information war against Russia and targeting journalists in an attempt to eradicate any dissent in the international press.