ny times building
© Reuters / Brendan McDermid
American private media often "launder" misinformation fed by the secret services, while politicians pressure Facebook to act as its proxy against foreign outlets, author and former Wall Street Journal reporter Joe Lauria told RT.

"Private corporate media, on their foreign policy and national security reporting, are virtually mouthpieces of the intelligence services," Lauria told RT.
They launder misinformation and disinformation from the intelligence services in the US, which gains credibility if you read it in the New York Times and not directly from the CIA. They have a state function as well even if they're corporate-owned. So this is clearly an anti-Russian, anti-Chinese, anti-Iranian thing.

Facebook earlier reported that it is labeling content posted by "state-controlled" media in order to battle "foreign influence" in the US 2020 presidential election. Pages of Russian media outlets, including RT and Sputnik, as well as Chinese media, have already been marked with such labels.

Lauria noted that social media giants like Facebook and Twitter enact such measures because they are being "heavily pressured" by US Congress as the politicians want private companies to de-facto serve "as proxies of the US government to do the censoring for them."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was previously summoned to congressional hearings where he was grilled for not doing enough to combat Russian 'propaganda' and urged to take decisive steps to curb foreign 'meddling' in US politics.