Meta has announced it will ban several Russian state-backed media networks from its platforms, claiming that the networks are covertly influencing social media users.

The ban will affect RT, Rossiya Segodnya, and other Russian-affiliated media outlets “for foreign interference activity,” Meta said in a statement on Monday.

“After careful consideration, we expanded our ongoing enforcement against Russian state media outlets,” the company said.

Meta had already restricted activity from the accounts across its social platforms, which includes Facebook and Instagram.

Previously, Russian state-controlled media sites were prevented from running advertisements across Meta’s platforms, and the reach of their content was limited.

Some Russian state media was also blocked in the EU, UK, and Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, after requests from the concerned countries’ on the potential affect of the state’s media on coverage of the war.

The Kremlin already released a response, saying that the social media giant was “discrediting itself” by the ban.

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So far, Rossiya Segodnya, which runs the news brands Sputnik and RIA Novosti, has yet to release a statement in relation to the ban.

Spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, however, said that the ban was “unacceptable.”

Russian-state-backed media have recently come under fire in the US as well, as the US accused RT of paying a firm in Tennessee £7.5m to spread Russian propaganda to US audiences.

The US claimed that the content, which included conservative, right-wing rhetoric on issues surrounding gender, immigration, and the economy, was partially created by RT employees.

Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, went so far as to call RT a “de facto arm of Russia’s intelligence.”

In response, RT said that this claim was a “conspiracy theory.”