With a decision that could have a significant impact on how companies like YouTube moderate their platforms, the European Union has announced something. They have announced that they are planning to ban Russian state media organizations. On Sunday, the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said to Russia Today (RT) that Sputnik and their respective subsidiaries will no longer be available to spread lies to justify Putin’s war. In simple words, they are banning outlets of media like RT and Sputnik. Therefore, the executive branch of the EU has planned to develop new tools to combat disinformation that has been spread by those organizations. However, von der Leyen didn’t specify what measures are going to be involved in all this.
At the same time, it has been said that it is very much unclear exactly how the EU will go about banning those organizations. Till now there is no one who is having updates on all this, no one knows about how the banning will take place. Both RT and Sputnik maintain active YouTube channels and banning them immediately would not be possible. On Saturday, it was also said that following a similar move from Facebook parent company Meta the company said that it would temporarily prevent a handful of Russian channels. This will also include RT, earning ad revenue from their content.
So far we would let the audience know that both of the social media platforms YouTube and Meta have only restricted access to Russian state-run outlets in Ukraine. This is the decision that Russia was quick to demand at least one of the companies reverse. Hence, this is all that we are knowing so far about this social media ban in the EU.
