Twitter bans Kremlin-backed RT, Sputnik from advertising
Advertisers can still keep accounts
Twitter announced on Thursday that it would ban RT and Sputnik, the two Kremlin-backed international news outlets, from advertising on its platform, intensifying the battle over Russian propaganda on social media and prompting an immediate threat of retaliation from the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The decision marks one of the most aggressive moves by an American social media company against the outlets, which United States intelligence officials have linked to a wide-ranging Kremlin effort, both covert and overt, to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. Twitter’s ban comes as United States authoritiesare pressuring RT, formerly known as Russia Today, to register as a foreign agent under a World War II-era law intended to curtail Nazi propaganda.
The ban will not apply to any other advertisers, Twitter said, and RT and Sputnik will be allowed to retain their own Twitter accounts and followers.
RT’s editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, called Twitter’s decision “highly regrettable” and cast it as part of a punitive campaign by the U.S. government against her own country. Earlier Thursday, Ms. Simonyan taunted Twitter on its own platform, tweeting that the company had pitched RT on a large ad campaign for the 2016 election that RT had declined.
The Russian government, which in recent days has warned that it will respond in kind to American pressure on RT, responded even more forcefully. In a statement posted on Facebook, a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, blamed Twitter’s decision on the influence of American intelligence officials. “Naturally, a response will follow,” Ms. Zakharovasaid.
Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, is now at the center of congressional investigations into the Russian intervention in the 2016 election. Kremlinlinked operatives deployed paid human “trolls” and hordes of fake accounts on Twitter and Facebook to push news and conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton and criticism of the United States government. But RT and Sputnik, both funded by the Kremlin, worked openly, using platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to amplify content critical of Ms. Clinton, sometimes paying for advertisements to boost their stories more aggressively.