Google’s YouTube on Tuesday joined a string of big tech giants blocking content from Russian state-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik across Europe.
The company said in a statement that it is blocking YouTube channels connected to the two media outlets in the EU, effective immediately, due to the ongoing situation in Ukraine.
“It'll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action,” a YouTube spokesperson said on
Twitter.Previously, Google barred the likes of RT and Sputnik and several other Russian channels from
earning money for ads on their websites, apps, and YouTube videos, in line with recent EU sanctions.
The announcement comes after Facebook parent company Meta Platforms on Monday said it will restrict access to Kremlin-backed news outlets RT, formerly known as Russia Today, and Sputnik on its platforms across the European Union.
The decision came at the request of the Ukrainian government.
“We have received requests from a number of governments and the EU to take further steps in relation to Russian state-controlled media. Given the exceptional nature of the current situation, we will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time,” Meta’s vice president for global affairs, Nick Clegg,
said.
“We will continue to work closely with Governments on this issue,”
he added.
Elsewhere,
Twitter said on Monday that it is adding labels and reducing the visibility for tweets containing content from websites like RT and Sputnik.
The label will be applied automatically to any tweets that include a URL from a designated state-affiliated media website, Reuters reported. Twitter is also making it less likely that people will see such tweets by not recommending them to users and taking them out of the “Top Search” function.
Microsoft also
said it would remove RT apps from its app store, no longer display any state-sponsored RT and Sputnik content, and de-rank search results from Bing in an effort to “exposure of Russian state propaganda, as well to ensure our own platforms do not inadvertently fund these operations.”
The Atlanta-based company also said it is banning all advertisements from RT and Sputnik across its advertising network.
A spokesperson for the video social networking service TikTok also told
NPR on Monday that it has blocked both of the accounts of RT and Sputnik in the EU, meaning that people using the app in Europe will no longer be able to view pages or content posted by either of the outlets.
The Epoch Times has contacted a TikTok spokesperson for comment.
The move by a string of big tech companies come after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday
said the EU would ban RT and Sputnik, which she referred to as the “Kremlin’s media machine.”
“The state-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, and their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war,” von der Leyen said. “We are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe.”
Just days before her announcement, the EU sanctioned RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.
The steps from multiple social media companies come as Western leaders are increasingly putting pressure on tech firms to limit how the Kremlin can spread pro-Russian propaganda, with state-backed outlets typically serving as a mouthpiece for Putin’s government.
