African Stream, the popular online news outlet that presents itself as an independent, pan-African media organisation focused on giving a voice to Africans, is actually run as part of a Russian scheme attempting to exert influence in both Africa and the US.

That’s according to a new study published by the Stanford Cyber Policy Centre, which began digging into the outlet following a public announced by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who claimed that African Stream is secretly run by the Kremlin-funded RT as part of a covert Russian influence operation.

“RT also secretly runs the online platform African Stream across a wide range of social media platforms,” Blinken said. “According to the outlet’s website, “African Stream is” – and I quote – ‘a pan-African digital media organisation based exclusively on social-media platforms, focused on giving a voice to all Africans both at home and abroad.’  In reality, the only voice it gives is to Kremlin propagandists.”

On its official account on social media platform X, African Stream posted on October 1 that, shortly after Blinken held that press conference “in which he smeared African Stream as a Kremlin influence op, Big Tech started cracking down on us. We were banned by (Google owned) YouTube, as well as by Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. We were also blacklisted by financial-services provider Stripe. And now Google has blocked us from more of its services, including Gmail and G Drive - further hampering our ability to work.”

African Stream posted on X a screengrab of a notice from Gmail that its account was disabled as of September 30; another (undated) screengrab of a notice from YouTube said, “We have reviewed your content and found severe or repeated violations of our Community Guidelines. Because of this, we have removed your channel from YouTube.”

According to Stanford, African Stream operates in a manner consistent with past Russian influence campaigns. The platform mirrors strategies used by the now deceased Yevgeny Prigozhin, who funded the famous  Internet Research Agency in 2014 in an attempt to influence US politics. Much like previous Russian operations, African Stream repurposes content that has already gained traction, leveraging its reach to amplify anti-Western narratives. 

Despite its claim of being an independent entity, Stanford claims that African Stream’s CEO, the Ahmed Kaballo, a Sudanese-British journalist, is not actually independent, which questions being raised about ties to state media outlets in Russia, Iran, Turkey, and China. 

“What sets African Stream apart is its higher reach and video-first approach, along with the extent to which staff have state media experience: the CEO along with at least five of the reporters we identified all had extensive experience working for state media outlets.” the Stanford report states.

Following Blinken’s statement, many of the company’s social media accounts were shut down, including on TikTok and YouTube. Despite this, the outlet continues to engage with followers on smaller platforms such as Telegram and Rumble.

The organisation’s narratives frequently centre around anti-American and anti-Western themes, often with only tenuous links to Africa. For instance, a TikTok video criticised US Vice President Kamala Harris, using her Afro-Jamaican heritage as a weak connection to African issues. These themes of Western criticism, especially targeting the US, France, and Israel, are directly aimed to appeal to African Stream’s target audience.

According to Stanford, questions remain about whether African Stream’s employees are aware of the platform’s Russian ties.