Europe’s effort to cut off access to Russian state-owned media extends to search engines and social-media posts, not just their television channels and online-video feeds, according to a copy of an email from the bloc’s executive arm.
The email, disclosed by Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a public database of removal requests, shows how the European Union’s sanctions last week against RT—the Kremlin-backed outfit previously known as Russia Today—and sister online media outlet Sputnik News, are broader than some initially understood. The EU imposed the sanctions in an effort to cut off what officials described as Kremlin war propaganda during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
A Google spokeswoman said disclosure of government take-down requests is a longstanding practice. A spokesman for the European Commission, said that the ban applies regardless of distribution channel, including internet service providers.
A spokesman for RT’s French-language outlet said Thursday that the sanctions “have no legal basis and violate the principle of free expression.” RT France has appealed to the EU’s Court of Justice against the EU’s sanctions, according to court filings.
In response to last week’s sanctions, telecommunications companies were obliged to remove the RT television channel from their TV services in Europe, and so far in at least some EU countries, they have also blocked the RT and Sputnik websites from being accessible to internet users.
Google also made the outlets’ YouTube video channels inaccessible in Europe, while Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, Twitter Inc. and ByteDance Inc.’s TikTok said last week that they have restricted access to the outlets in Europe.
Representatives of Meta, TikTok and Twitter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The email from the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, specifies that its sanctions order should be interpreted to cover search engines because they “facilitate the public’s access to the content of RT and Sputnik.” It also says that social-media companies must either not post or delete posts from individuals that broadcast or recopy content from RT or Sputnik.
Google searches conducted Thursday morning in Europe for Sputnik and Russia Today turned up results including news articles about their being banned and Wikipedia pages about the outlets, but not links to their websites. In the U.S., those websites remained among the top results for the same query.
The EU sanctions provide exceptions for media outlets reporting on RT and Sputnik, the email says, adding that companies must draw a line between content from the state-owned outlets and users’ own social media content, which should be allowed.
“Admittedly, that line might be difficult to draw in certain cases in practice,” the email says.