Meta Bans Russian State Media

Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads — banned several Russian state media outlets last week, including RT and Rossiya Segodnya, as part of its ongoing efforts to counter Russia’s malign influence operations. Amid concerted efforts by the Justice, Treasury, and State Departments to expose, disrupt, and counter Russia’s covert attempts to influence U.S. public opinion, Meta’s decision is an important step by the social media industry to stem the proliferation of disinformation.

Meta maintains that it banned RT and Rossiya Segodnya due to their efforts to persistently engage in foreign interference activity by promoting Kremlin-aligned narratives. Such narratives seek to undermine Western support for Ukraine and exacerbate political polarization in the United States stemming from the 2024 presidential election. Meta had previously sought to limit the influence of RT and Rossiya Segodnya by prohibiting them from buying ads and by labeling their posts as originating from state-funded sources. Despite these steps, prior to last week’s actions, RT had over 7.2 million followers on Facebook and more than 1 million followers on Instagram.

Meta’s decision coincides with significant undertakings by the U.S. government to counter Russian influence operations over the past three weeks. On September 4, the Treasury Department sanctioned several RT employees for their role in attempting to sway U.S. public opinion ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. That same day, the Justice Department indicted two RT employees on money laundering charges, alleging that they channeled $10 million to Tennessee-based Tenet Media to pay conservative U.S. influencers to promote Kremlin-aligned views. On September 13, the State Department designated RT, Sputnik, and their parent company, Rossiya Segodnya, noting that they “engage in information operation, covert influence, and military procurement” and coordinate with Russian intelligence activities.

The effectiveness of the ban, however, remains uncertain. After being blocked in the EU following Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, RT continued to disseminate its content among EU viewers by creating “clone” websites mirroring RT’s original domain but not subject to the ban. Additionally, Russia’s use of front domains — which redirect users to domains different from what initially appears as the destination — further hinders social media companies’ ability to effectively utilize algorithms to detect and remove banned content. It is also possible for Russian accounts to simply copy and paste the text of RT content into a post or share screenshots of articles to bypass state media labels.

Despite these challenges, there are technical solutions that can help social media companies identify malicious efforts to circumvent restrictions. Companies can use perceptual hashes — unique numeric identifiers created to identify images, videos, or PDFs — to better detect screenshots of articles from banned media. Additionally, text-detection methods utilizing natural language processing can detect copy-pasting of banned content into posts. Social media companies might also scrutinize their platforms’ search algorithms to ensure that they are not inadvertently promoting accounts known to post evasions of banned content.

Together, these steps stand to improve the ability of social media companies to enforce their own efforts to combat foreign malign influence operations.

Max Lesser is a senior analyst on emerging threats at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI), where Mason Krusch is an intern. For more analysis from the authors, CCTI, and FDD’s Russia Program, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_CCTI. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.