Pan-African media platform, African Stream, has announced that it will cease operations on July 1, 2025, citing a wave of censorship triggered by a U.S. government statement and subsequent social media bans.
The closure comes months after a September 2024 statement by then U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who publicly labelled African Stream “Kremlin propagandists.”
In a statement on Sunday, June 22, Ahmed Kaballo, the Editor-in-Chief of the outlet, stated that its accounts were removed from YouTube, Meta, Google, and TikTok after Blinken’s statement.
Personal accounts linked to the African Stream project were also restricted, according to Kaballo.
“These actions shattered our ability to survive financially,” the African Stream Editor stated in the farewell statement, posted on June 22.
Closing down
“We are deeply proud of the work we’ve done since 2022, bringing attention to the most underreported and misrepresented continent,” the statement read.
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Despite having built an international following and launching documentaries focused on multiple countries, African Stream said the bans made its operation impossible.
African Stream now plans to release a few final films from Mali and Liberia before shutting down all operations.
In his statement, the Editor-in-Chief urged its supporters to continue advocating for Pan-African media.
African Stream on US Censorship
While African Stream did not directly confirm links to Russia, it maintained that its editorial mission was to amplify Africa-centered perspectives often excluded from Western reporting.
The platform frequently highlighted the themes of colonialism, neo-colonialism, and U.S. foreign policy in Africa including repeated references to U.S. drone strikes in Somalia.
These stances drew scrutiny from U.S. outlets like NBC and Voice of America.
African Stream accused these entities of launching a smear campaign, saying it was targeted not for falsehoods but for refusing “to play by the rules” of what it calls imperialist narratives.
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The platform urged its supporters to continue advocating for Pan-African media.
The U.S. Embassy in Nairobi was yet to respond to a request for comment on African Stream’s closure by the time of publishing this article.
Antony Blinken Remarks
On September 13, 2024, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a statement accusing African Stream, a Kenya-based pan-African digital media platform, of being secretly run by RT (Russia Today), a Russian state-funded media outlet.
Blinken claimed that African Stream, despite presenting itself as a platform focused on amplifying African voices, was a front for Kremlin propagandists engaged in covert influence operations to spread disinformation and undermine democratic processes globally, including in the United States and Moldova.
Blinken claimed that Russia Today “secretly runs the online platform African Stream across a wide range of social media platforms.”
“African Stream is – and I quote – ‘a pan-African digital media organization 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,” Blinken stated.
He added that RT’s activities, including its alleged control of African Stream, were part of broader Russian efforts to sow division in Western democracies and support military procurement for the war in Ukraine.
Following this statement, African Stream faced bans from major platforms like YouTube, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), TikTok, Gmail, and Google.
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