Sputnik and RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has posted a tweet in which she revealed that her Facebook account has been suspended.
"I was banned on Facebook. Trying to figure out why. Meanwhile, I'll contemplate about free internet, freedom of speech and all that", Simonyan wrote.
Меня забанили на Facebook.
— Маргарита Симоньян (@M_Simonyan) September 12, 2019
За что, почему - выясняем.
А я пока помедитирую о свободном интернете, свободе слова и вот этом всем.
The RT team wrote on its Telegram channel that Simonyan has been banned on Facebook for three days for "breaching the community rules".
"It is unclear what caused the ban. We wrote an inquiry to Facebook", they wrote.
Simonyan condemned the ban saying that "we are living in a country where American censorship is practiced freely and with no barriers".
"The younger generations living on social networks believe that this [ban] is standard practice, while those older and in charge do not understand what it is about in most cases. As for me, I just feel sad", Simonyan said.
Attacks on Sputnik and Russia Today
Russia-based media outlet Sputnik and RT have repeatedly come under attack by Western officials, who blamed the news outlets for alleged attempts to sway public opinion worldwide. The leadership of the broadcasters, as well as the Russian authorities, dismissed the claims, suggesting that mainstream media were not interested in the presence of an alternative coverage of events, and condemned the accusations as attacks on free media.
In 2016, the European Parliament passed a resolution on the necessity to counter Russian media, singling out RT and Sputnik as major threats.
A number of European and US politicians have accused Sputnik and RT of interfering in other countries' affairs, without providing any evidence for their allegations.
In July, the UK Foreign Office refused accreditation to RT and Sputnik journalists to take part in a conference on media freedom, citing the role of the two media outlets in "spreading misinformation".
