Facebook blocks RT from posting until after Trump inauguration January 2017
Facebooks notification to RT
RT has been blocked from posting content to its Facebook page. The ban, according to the Facebook bot, will last until Saturday 10:55pm Moscow time (2:55pm EST) and will extend across US president-elect Donald Trump's inauguration.
Facebook blocks RT from posting until after Trump inauguration
RT are banned from posting anything but text - no sharing of links, images or livestreams
A misplaced live streaming rights strike during RT's broadcast of President Obama's final press conference seems to have triggered the ban.


RT's Head of Social media, Ivor Crotty, said "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."


"While Facebook is a powerful distributor of live-streams it is struggling with the rights ramifications. RT will continue text-only posts to Facebook until the issue is resolved," Crotty added.



President Obama's final press conference was carried live by multiple news networks on Wednesday. RT's stream was interrupted by a Facebook bot notification that rights had been claimed by a local Russian publisher.

12 hours since the block, RT has not received any mails from Facebook to its page admin confirming this was the case.

The manager of the "News, Media and Publishing on Facebook" Group responded to an RT post on the block, saying it seemed RT had rights but that the only option was to submit to Facebook's management system.

This is the first time RT has been blocked from posting to Facebook. Here is the image of our post to Facebook and of the chat with Facebook Media, News & Publishing group.

Facebook blocks RT from posting until after Trump inauguration
Image of RT's communication with with Facebook Media, News & Publishing group

Comment: Given that: the timing coincides with Trumps inauguration and is the first time ever RT has been blocked from posting media; the poor reasoning that it's perhaps an algorithm problem; the absence of any moves from Facebook to resolve the issue; one wonders whether RT, one of social media's most powerful news outlets, is considered a threat to the #FakeNews produced by the failing mainstream media. And at such an auspicious turning point in Americas recent history.

This is just one of many examples of the establishments last desperate attempts at directing the conversation.

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