Russia’s Foreign Ministry and a Kremlin-funded news network sharply criticized a decision Thursday by social media site Twitter to block all advertising from the global messaging site.
Twitter said in a statement it was immediately “off-boarding” all ad accounts from Russia Today (RT) and the Sputnik news service, citing what it said was the U.S. intelligence community’s consensus decision that the two media outlets “attempted to interfere with the [2016 U.S. presidential] election on behalf of the Russian government.”
Twitter also said it was donating nearly $2 million in ad business it has banked with RT since 2011 to a fund for external research on the use and abuse of social-media services like Twitter in public policy and political campaigns.
“We did not come to this decision lightly, and are taking this step now as part of our ongoing commitment to protect the integrity of the user experience on Twitter,” the San Francisco-based company said.
But the Russian government, which has repeatedly denied it tried to meddle in the U.S. vote, denounced the ban and promised a response.
“This is yet another aggressive move aimed at blocking the activities as a result of part of the American establishment and secret services,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a Facebook post, according to the Moscow Times newspaper. “Naturally, there will be retaliatory measures.”
SEE ALSO: Twitter to ban ads from Russia’s RT, Sputnik
RT Deputy Editor-in-Chief Kirill Karnovich-Valua in a statement Thursday denied the company was part of any effort to influence the U.S. political debate through ads on Twitter, and said Twitter officials just last year had pitched to the Russian news service a “large-sum advertising proposal” to promote the outlet’s U.S. election coverage. RT said it eventually decided to decline the Twitter proposal.
Mr. Karnovich-Valua said RT was disclosing the Twitter ad collaboration offer to prove that RT “has never been involved in any illegal activity online, and … has never pursued an agenda of influencing the U.S. election through any platforms, including Twitter.”
Top officials of Twitter, Google and Facebook are set to testify next week again on Capitol Hill on the role of social media in suspected Russian attempts to hack to the 2016 vote.
Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief, went to Twitter itself Thursday to deliver a pointed message to company founder Jack Dorsey about next week’s hearing: “Hope @jack won’t forget to tell @congressdotgov how @Twitter pitched @RT.com to spend big $s on US elex ad campaign.”
• David R. Sands can be reached at dsands@washingtontimes.com.
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