Google Bans African Stream’s Gmail Account Over ‘Unsubstantiated’ Allegation by U.S. Secretary Anthony Blinken

Google LLC, an American-based multinational technology company, has banned African Stream from utilising its workspace application and other paid features.

African Stream disclosed this on Tuesday on its official X handle, stating that the latest censoring move by the tech giant has caused the Nairobi-based news company to lose two years of emails and files stored in the cloud-based storage.

According to African Stream, “Google did not provide any credible reason for banning us other than saying we ‘violated Google Workspace policy,’ which includes ‘sending spam or using the account for any kind of fraud.’ We have never at any point engaged in the activities mentioned above.”

Similarly, on September 17, 2024, the Western-based social media company Meta banned African Stream accounts after U.S. Secretary Anthony Blinken announced sanctions against Russian state broadcaster RT and other non-western-aligned media platforms like African Stream, for operating under Russian influence without evidence to back the allegation.

Also, on September 20, 2024, Meta suspended the backup accounts of African Stream on Instagram, after which it banned its official accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, adding to a YouTube suspension by Google.

Read Also: X’s Payment Partner Stripe Demonetises African Stream Account Amid Meta Ban

With the latest ban by Meta, African Stream wrote, “Of course, we did not expect a reasonable explanation because there is simply none; we can only conclude they took us down based on US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s unsubstantiated allegation on 13 September that we are ‘Kremlin propagandists.'”

The African-run news company has since questioned, “Is this the rule-based order the US and other Western states passionately discuss? How can Big Tech bow down after one speech by a US official? How is that democratic?”

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About The Author

Mayowa Durosinmi

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M. Durosinmi is a West Africa Weekly investigative reporter covering Politics, Human Rights, Health, and Security in West Africa and the Sahel Region

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