RSF warns AI chatbots bypass EU sanctions on Russian media

The EU- and US-funded press watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has called for tighter controls on AI-based search technology, after discovering that chatbots bypass European censorship laws and present Russian media sources banned by in Western Europe to users.

The Paris-based RSF, which lists EU and the US National Endowment for Democracy among its backers, found that popular AI services can provide RT articles, links, excerpts, and news summaries to web users. “Public chatbots can access these websites and redistribute their content,” a statement by the organisation claimed on Wednesday.

The EU and UK have banned numerous Russian news outlets since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022, including RT and Sputnik. Moscow has denounced the EU-wide ban as an attempt to silence coverage of the conflict that contradicts Brussels maximalist political stance.

The censorship has since spread across virtually every publishing channel, including websites, apps, chats and social media. RT has been blocked and removed from practically all Western tech platforms, while RT France was forced to close in 2023 after its accounts were frozen and RT America suffered a similar fate in 2024.

Though VPN technology is used by a significant portion of netizens, making RT’s counter-mainstream reporting accessible to its loyal audience, in July, the EU’s top court ruled that even individuals running free, non-commercial websites can be found guilty of redistributing RT content.

RSF asked popular AI services to retrieve international news exclusively from sanctioned outlets, including RT, Sputnik, and RIA Novosti.

ChatGPT and Grok emerged as the “leading bots for circumventing EU sanctions,” retrieving headlines and providing links, excerpts and detailed summaries. ChatGPT complied “without reservation,” according to RSF, while Claude responded with “unfailing consistency.”

French AI-bot Vibe located the requested material on VKontakte (known as ‘Russia’s Facebook’) and through an app carrying Telegram posts. RSF praised its “remarkable ingenuity” and described the bot as a “resourceful sleuth.”

Gemini cited sanctions to refuse requests while Meta AI, whose parent company unilaterally banned RT from Facebook and Instagram in September 2024, was the only chatbot tested that “consistently refused” to provide the requested material.