Disinfo: The US is ordering Facebook to censor Sputnik’s opinions

Summary

Under the guidance of the US political leadership, Facebook is blocking posts on Sputnik pages. Anything that contradicts the directions of the American side is deleted or blocked, as it has happened in the past with (former US President Donald) Trump.

The Facebook administration took the same measures with China and Venezuela in earlier times, due to the political dispute with the American side, despite the fact that these pages did not violate the stated standards.

The US can pressure Facebook to block official websites belonging to the Russian state, especially official news sites, including Sputnik, in order to stop the flow of news that does not comply with American policy.

Disproof

A pro-Kremlin narrative about the US's alleged media censorship and societal control.

This message is consistent with another broad pro-Kremlin narrative that seeks to discredit democratic societies by painting the latter as totalitarian systems that want to persecute anyone who expresses views that are different from the dominant way of thinking.

In fact, the decision by internet companies against former American President Donald Trump is a response to disinformation and crimes that might be contained within the speech itself. A good example is incitement which is what happened when Trump "ordered" his supporters to march to the US Capitol on January 6th 2021.

While several international figures have criticised these moves as a worrying sign of power in the hands of social media platforms, many voices also pointed out that there were multiple reasons for doing it, including preventing further violence and curbing hate speech, which is not protected by freedom of expression.

On the other hand, Sputnik Arabic has made it clear why Facebook took the decision to limit/ban its posting option, as it has “published on 3 January a video clip about the life of slain Iranian General Qassem Soleimani”. The social media giant Facebook has admitted before to censoring posts in support of Soleimani that it says “violate US sanction laws, specifically those related to the US government's designation of the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and its leadership as a terrorist organisation."

Thus the issue has nothing to do with Sputnik Arabic being a Russian outlet or the US government trying to silence those with whom it has political disagreements, but rather with the outlet having shared content that violated community standards. In this case, content related to the IRGC, included on the US terrorist list.

See other examples in our databases, such as claims that Trump was denied his right to speak; that social media outlets are censoring Trump and everyone who has their own views; that Google and Facebook manipulate information to destroy Russia; or that Facebook is a project of the Soros Foundation, financed by NSA.

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  • Reported in: Issue 271
  • DATE OF PUBLICATION: 23/01/2022
  • Article language(s) Arabic
  • Countries and/or Regions discussed in the disinformation: Iran, US, Russia
  • Keywords: Donald Trump, social media, Facebook, Freedom of speech, Censorship, Sputnik, Anti-Russian
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