Meta Bans Russian State Media in the Wake of Covert Influence Program

With just six weeks to go till the U.S. presidential election, Meta has announced an expanded ban on Russian state media accounts, after recent investigations uncovered that Russia-based groups have been seeking to sway the opinions of U.S. voters.

As reported by Reuters:

“Meta said on Monday it was banning RT, Rossiya Segodnya and other Russian state media networks from its platforms, claiming the outlets had used deceptive tactics to carry out covert influence operations online […] This comes after the United States filed money-laundering charges earlier this month against two RT employees for what officials said was a scheme to hire an American company to produce online content to influence the 2024 election.”

The scheme in question saw a Russian influence group paying right-wing commentators in the U.S. to amplify political division, via a front media company based in Tennessee called “Tenet Media”.

Tenet Media had been paying out millions to a range of well-known online commentators, including Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin, among others, to produce videos focused on chosen topics and angles. The commentators themselves were not aware that they were being used by Russian state media to stoke voter angst, but the revelation has underlined once again the lengths that foreign operators will go to in order to sway international voters.

Meta, of course, came under intense scrutiny in the wake of the 2016 U.S. election, after it was revealed that Russian groups had used Facebook ads and groups to provoke American voters. Some have speculated that such efforts helped to get Donald Trump elected, though it’s not clear that these initiatives actually favored one candidate or the other, but more that they sought to shift global opinion on issues relevant to Russian interests.

Like the war in Ukraine:

“In one instance, [RT] asked [Tenet Media] to produce a video that would blame Ukraine and the United States for a mass shooting at a Moscow music venue, the Justice Department said, even though Islamic State had claimed responsibility.”

This is the type of influence that RT tends to favor, which is less about getting one candidate elected over another, and more geared towards alternative explanations which effectively reduce scrutiny on Russia’s involvement.

Chinese influence groups utilize similar approaches, in raising subtle questions about U.S. aggression, or interference in Chinese operations. So it’s often less overt than you might expect, and while there have been some indications that Russian operatives would prefer to have Trump win the upcoming poll, really, it’s more about raising awareness of supposedly “hidden” agendas which then dilute scrutiny on Russia’s actions.

Meta has been countering Russian influence operations in its apps for years, including its ongoing effort to stamp out an initiative called “Doppelganger,” which is focused on weakening international support for Ukraine.

As Meta outlined in its Q1 adversarial threat report:

“Nearly two years ago, we were the first technology company to publicly report on Doppelganger, an operation centered around a large network of websites spoofing legitimate news outlets. The EU Disinfo Lab and the Digital Forensic Research Lab published open source research at the same time. In December 2022, we were first to publicly attribute it to two companies in Russia who were sanctioned by the EU in 2023 and by the US Treasury Department in 2024.”

So again, Russian influence operations are ever present, but even so, Meta’s decision to expand its enforcement to Russian state media is still a significant step. Which will no doubt anger Russian leadership, but then again, there’s not much more they can do to punish Meta, as it already banned both Facebook and Instagram back in 2022 for failing to action its requests to remove misinformation about Ukraine.

Other social platforms have also taken action against RT in the past, with Twitter banning RT from advertising back in 2017, due to concerns stemming from its election interference program (Elon Musk lifted those bans after buying the platform). Facebook, too, has implemented restrictions on RT in the past, but it hasn’t gone so far as outright blocking the publication entirely.

It’s not yet clear if that’s how far Meta is looking to go this time around. But again, with only six weeks till the U.S. election, and clear evidence of attempted influence activity, it makes sense that Meta would be looking to move now to avoid any further complications.

It’ll be interesting to see the extend of Meta’s blocking, and whether it holds firm to that after the election.