Researcher Greg Simons predicted that blacklisting the Russian outlet will not make readers switch to traditional media.
Meta's decision to ban RT from its various platforms reflects a growing “panic” In the Western world, people no longer trust the information they receive from mainstream media, analysts Greg Simons and Albert Rudatsimburwa told RT.
Facebook and Instagram's parent company announced on Monday that it will remove several news brands, including RT, from its apps in the coming days. Meta explained that it was taking this action due to an alleged “foreign interference activity” by RT, echoing accusations made by the US government last week.
Greg Simons, a political researcher based in Sweden, told RT on Wednesday that the ban is a form of projection. “If you forbid something with false and vague accusations, then something is wrong, not with what you are accusing the other of, but with yourself.” said.
Meta has banned certain content in the past due to political pressure. In the run-up to the 2020 US presidential election, the company censored the story of Hunter Biden's laptop after US spies and Democrats claimed it was a “Russian disinformation” operation. The contents of the laptop, which implicated then-candidate Joe Biden and his family in numerous foreign influence-peddling schemes, were later proven to be genuine.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted last month that the Biden administration pressured him to remove content critical of Covid-19 vaccines and lockdowns, telling a Republican-led congressional committee that his company “We have made some decisions that, with the benefit of hindsight and new information, we would not make today.”
Rwandan journalist Albert Rudatsimburwa told RT that Meta's ban might have something to do with the fast-approaching US elections.
“There will be elections in the United States soon and it is as if there is a panic mode that pushes them to do extreme things like that,” said.
“People don’t trust the big media, (and) they don’t trust these giants like Meta,” Simons added. “It is clear that this is done from a position of not just panic, but weakness. People understand this. If they cannot access RT, and I am sure some will be able to, they will not consume traditional media. The lie is exposed and will only crumble further because they cannot sustain it.”
Meta has complied with the EU-wide ban on RT since 2022, which the bloc unilaterally imposed following the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine. As such, both Rudatsimburwa and Simons agreed that the latest ban is primarily aimed at the Global South, where the US has been losing influence and, according to the US State Department, losing the information war to outlets like RT.
“At this point I feel like it's already a lost war,” Rudatsimburwa said, adding that audiences in the Global South have “sufficient maturity” realize that they are regularly misled by Western governments and media.
“Many people from the Global South and those who are independently minded understand this,” Simons added. “And I think more and more people will do it, because this is a crude and rude form of interference in the free dissemination of knowledge and information.”
