On Wednesday Facebook banned RT, the Kremlin-funded Russian TV channel formerly known as Russia Today, from posting articles, photos, and videos to Facebook.
Announced after RT allegedly ran a pirated stream of Obama’s last press conference, the ban was intially scheduled to be lifted at on Saturday, the day after Trump’s inauguration.
But the ban lasted no longer than 20 hours. The restrictions were lifted yesterday, with Facebook stating that “they [were] looking into the reasons behind the temporary block,” as reported by Gizmodo.
“We were blocked while livestreaming Obama’s final press-conference. Such things happen because (for ex.) some other news media livestreams carry the same shots and feed, and Facebook considers this a copyright violation,” RT stated on its Facebook page.
The channel’s Head of Social media, Ivor Crotty, added: “The live-rights strike seems to be part of an algorithmic failure to acknowledge rights acquired by broadcasters, and we hope it will be resolved in the short term.”
On her side, RT’s chief editor Margarita Simonyan suspects possible political motivations in Facebook’s move: “I’m not surprised. If the Department of State could block oxygen to us, they would do it”, the Russian news agency RIA quoted her as saying.
No other news outlet in recent memory has been blocked on Facebook in a manner like this, notes Gizmodo.
RT has been accused by the US and UK intelligence communities of spreading biased information in favor of Donald Trump during the US presidential campaign.
See more details on RT’s site.
