Simonyan Comments on US Calls to Ban Russian Media From News Feeds

"Now they want to ban us in news feeds. In the name of the freedom of speech, of course," Margarita Simonyan said.

Last week, Robert Blackwill and Philip Gordon, former US national security officials stressed the necessity of legislative actions to tackle alleged Russian interference in US domestic affairs in an article published in The Hill newspaper.

Blackwill and Gordon, research members at the US expert group Council on Foreign Relations are working on a report called "Containing Russia," where they suggest creating new laws to restrict media that allegedly expands Russian propaganda, particularly RT and Sputnik, from being featured on news feeds, to identify political ads paid for by foreign states and address disinformation.

The US authorities have recently pressured Russian media outlets over their alleged involvement in the 2016 US presidential election.

READ MORE: Simonyan Mocks Registration of Sputnik Content Producer as 'Foreign Agent' in US

In November, the US Department of Justice forced the US branch of the RT broadcaster to register as a "foreign agent" in the United States under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Other foreign state media operating in the United States, such as the United Kingdom’s BBC, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, and others, have not been required to do the same. According to Simonyan, the broadcaster had to choose between registering and being charged in a criminal case by the US government.

The claims of meddling have repeatedly and firmly been denied by Simonyan. Moscow has also opposed these allegations, emphasizing that there is no proof on the matter. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called such allegations baseless.