Maria Zakharova believes that this is an
"unprecedented American attack on media".
MOSCOW,
October 26./TASS/. Moscow sees the decision to off-board advertising from all
Twitter accounts owned by RT (Russian English-language television channel
broadcasting around the world) and the news agency Sputnik as an aggressive
move taken under the pressure from US intelligence agencies and will retaliate
to restrictions against Russian media, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman
Maria Zakharova said on Thursday.
"We
see this as a next aggressive move aimed at blocking the activity of Russia
Today (RT) and coming as a result of pressure from a faction in the
US establishment and intelligence agencies," the diplomat said,
adding that retaliatory moves will follow.
She said that preventing the activity of Russian media outlets, also "carried out with the use of intelligence services’ arsenals, testifies to a blatant violation by the US of international as well as domestic legislative acts, guaranteeing the freedom of speech". "Private corporations’ joining this campaign testifies to an unprecedented attack by American security agencies on media," Zakharova added.
The online
news and social networking service Twitter, the owner of the same-name
microblog service, has made a decision to remove advertising from all accounts
of the RT, a Russian English-language television channel broadcasting around
the world, including the United States, and the news agency Sputnik. The
decision is effective immediately, Twitter said.
"Twitter
has made the policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned
by Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik, effective immediately," the statement
said on Thursday.
Twitter
explains this decision is based on what it describes as "retrospective
work" it has been doing "around the 2016 U.S. election and the U.S.
intelligence community’s claims" that "both RT and Sputnik attempted
to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government."
"We
did not come to this decision lightly, and are taking this step now as part of
our ongoing commitment to help protect the integrity of the user experience on
Twitter," the company argued.
Early this
year, the U.S. intelligence community named the RT and Sputnik as
"implementing state-sponsored Russian efforts to interfere with and
disrupt the 2016 presidential election." This decision does not apply to
any other advertisers. RT and Sputnik may remain "organic users on our
platform," in accordance with the Twitter rules, the statement ran.
Source: ITAR-TASS 27-10-2017
