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As Russia continues its assault into Ukraine’s territory, a parallel war is being fought on social media, with both sides rallying for the support over Twitter and Facebook. For instance, with its memes and advisories against misinformation, an official Ukrainian Twitter account (@Ukraine) has amassed over 1.4 million followers.
Amid disinformation and propaganda, the conflict has brought scrutiny over tech giants’ policies, which are largely built upon providing a democratic space with free speech for all. Since Russia’s strike, Facebook, Twitter and Google have announced a slew of measures such as revoking advertisements for Russian state media, monitoring mis/disinformation and tools for increasing the privacy of Ukrainian citizens.
At the same time, Russia has sought to restrict access to Facebook, citing ‘censorship’ by the tech giant. Reports also state that users in certain areas of Russia were unable to access Twitter over the weekend.
Here’s how social media platforms have responded to the crisis.
Nathaniel Gleicher, the Head of Security Policy at Meta, Facebook’s parent company, on Monday, tweeted that as part of its steps to keep people in Ukraine safe, it has identified a hacker group, Ghostwriter, attempting to ‘compromise’ the accounts of prominent military personnel and public figures in Ukraine.
“We detected attempts to target people on Facebook to post YouTube videos portraying Ukrainian troops as weak and surrendering to Russia, including one video claiming to show Ukrainian soldiers coming out of a forest while flying a white flag of surrender. We’ve taken steps to secure accounts that we believe were targeted by this threat actor and, when we can, to alert the users that they had been targeted,” a security update by Facebook read.
The measure came just days after Nick Clegg, the Vice-President of Global Affairs at Meta, informed over Twitter that Russian authorities had ordered the platform to “stop the independent fact-checking and labelling of content posted on Facebook by four Russian state-owned media organisations”. He added, “We refused. As a result, they have announced they will be restricting the use of our services.”
Clegg was responding to an order by Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, also called Roskomnadzor, partially restricting access to Facebook in the country.
In its order, the media monitoring agency said on Friday, “the Facebook social network (Meta Platforms, Inc.) restricted the official accounts of four Russian media outlets: the Zvezda TV channel, the RIA Novosti news agency, and the Lenta.ru and Gazeta.ru Internet sites.” It stated that such actions were “prohibited” by the Federal Law No. 272-FZ. Adding that Meta ignored its requests to remove such restrictions, Roskomnadzor said Russia has “decided to recognize the social network Facebook as involved in the violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms, as well as the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.”
It has, hence, partially restricted access to the site “in the form of slowing down traffic”. In fact, a February 26 report by NetBlocks, an internet monitoring organisation, states that Facebook’s servers have been restricted in a way that “content no longer loads, or loads extremely slowly making the platforms unusable.”
Clegg on Monday said the Russian Government is “throttling our platform” to prevent people from using social media networks to protest and organise against the war. He added that though Ukraine has requested them to block Facebook and Instagram in Russia, the company believed that turning off their services would “silence important expression at a crucial time”.
Clegg, however, specified they have restricted accounts of certain Russian state-media agencies in Ukraine at the request of its government officials and is reviewing other Russian-controlled accounts.
Among other measures taken by the tech giant, Meta has prohibited Russian state-media from running ads or monetising on its platform.
To make social media usage safer for Ukrainians and prevent people from being targeted, Facebook has also removed the ability to view and search friends lists and is spreading awareness about its ‘lock your profile’ tool. It has also set up a new task force with staffers, who have the knowledge of the native language, to enhance its response to the crisis.
Twitter has paused advertisements in Ukraine and Russia to “ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it”.
Hours after the announcement, reports stated that Russia has restricted access to Twitter as well. The platform, too, confirmed in a tweet that it is aware of restrictions over its services for some people in Russia. Twitter said that it is working on keeping the platform safe and accessible. Its Public Policy account tweeted, “We believe people should have free and open access to the Internet, which is particularly important during times of crisis”.
Twitter has assured that it is proactively looking out for any manipulation of its platform and is taking action against misleading or false content. Additionally, it is tracking high-profile accounts of government officials and agencies as well as journalists and activists to quickly resolve any attempt at takeover or manipulation. Twitter also continues to label accounts and tweets by government officials to caution users.
Last week, about a dozen open-source intelligence (OSINT) analysts on Twitter, who had been posting information on the Russian military, were “incorrectly” taken down by the site and later reinstated. While several tech analysts thought this to be a result of mass reporting (coordinated inauthentic behaviour) by Russian accounts, Twitter ruled out the possibility. Yoel Roth, head of Site Integrity at Twitter, explained, “A small number of human errors as part of our work to proactively address manipulated media resulted in these incorrect enforcements.” He added, “We do not trigger automated enforcements based on report volume, ever, exactly because of how easily gamed that would be.”
Google’s video streaming platform, YouTube, like Facebook has also blocked Russian state-owned media outlet RT and other channels from monetizing over its platform through advertisements.
Earlier, Ukraine’s Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, who has also asked Mark Zuckerberg to ban his products in Russia, stated that he had contacted YouTube to block “propagandist Russian channels — such as Russia 24, TASS, RIA Novosti.” “If they are afraid of speaking the truth, (then) we should stop this flow of poisonous lies,” he said in a tweet on February 26.
On Sunday, Reuters reported that according to a YouTube spokesperson, videos of RT and other channels will come up less often in recommendations. As per the Ukrainian government’s request, these channels would no longer be accessible in the country, he said. NetBlocks has reported that RT’s app was also removed from Google’s Play Store in Ukraine.
Moreover, YouTube has also taken action against misinformation. Google Europe had tweeted on Saturday, “Over the last few days, we’ve removed hundreds of channels and thousands of videos and we remain vigilant for violative misinformation.”
Google has also blocked Russian-state controlled media from using its AdSense technology to generate revenue, buying ads over Google Tools or placing ads on its services.
In an additional measure for the security of Ukrainians, Reuters Monday reported that Google Maps will no longer display live traffic information or how busy a location is in Ukraine to users across the world.
Whether it’s a clipping of a video game or of a previous conflict being shared as real-time events in Ukraine, or old images being revived as current ones, misinformation across social media platforms is a serious concern during a crisis.
In fact, last year, internal documents of Facebook showed that Russia was among the top tier of countries at high risk of violence, hate speech and misinformation. These documents were disclosed to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and provided to US Congress in redacted form by the legal counsel of whistleblower Frances Haugen.
Government officials across the world, including Ukraine, have called for measures against misinformation campaigns. On Monday, news agency AP reported that Prime Ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland have written to heads of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Google to restrict the spread of misinformation. Stating that actions taken thus far were “not enough”, in a letter dated Sunday, the officials accused Russia of running a “massive disinformation campaign” to “justify to the world and to its own people its war of aggression and to hide the crimes that are being committed in its course”.
Earlier, US Senator Mark Warner had also written to these platforms as well as Reddit, TikTok and others, stating, “Unfortunately, your platforms continue to be key vectors for malign actors – including, notably, those affiliated with the Russian government – to not only spread disinformation but to profit from it.” He urged them to create mechanisms to ensure the safe dissemination of essential information and enhance monitoring.
Alex Stamos, the former head of security at Facebook and currently a professor at the Stanford Internet Observatory, called for a ban on RT and Sputnik on social media platforms such as the one imposed by the European Union on their media channels. “US sanctions to silence RT would be problematic, which is why voluntary steps by platforms are important,” he said in a tweet on Saturday. He went on to state, “It’s appropriate for American companies to pick sides in geopolitical conflicts, and this should be an easy call. A more neutral standard would be to block state media from countries that block your platform.”
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