Facebook restricting Russian State Media Content Worldwide

Facebook has decided to limit all Russian state media on the platform worldwide. The president of global affairs the company, Nick Clegg, announced that the platform will demote state media such as Russia Today and Sputnik in its news feed, in addition to posts referencing Russian state media.

Earlier this week the parent company of Facebook, Meta restricted access to Russian controlled media in the European Union. Instagram is also under the process to block pages associated with state-run media in Russia. 

Katie Harbarth, a former policy director for the company has also noted that Facebook had blocked or has taken down sites that are giving out political disinformation in the past and has said that the company has never done anything as broad as it is doing against the Russian state media.

The move comes after the Tech and Communications regulator, Roskomnadzor accused Facebook of censorship after it took down disinformation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Russian government also started limiting access to Facebook and Instagram within the country.

Despite Facebook's announcement that it closed its propaganda network over the weekend, false and deliberate disinformation about the invasion has been rampant since Russia invaded Ukraine last week. Facebook and Twitter also immediately recommended that anyone using the platform in Ukraine should consider simply closing their account, implying the threat of hacking and tampering. The Russian government has a well-known history of using social media to manipulate political events using bots and account takeovers.