A growing number of tech giants are applying Russian sanctions of the digital kind in response to the unprovoked attack on Ukraine. Update: Apple subsequently announced its own responses.
Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok are all limiting access to two Russian media brands, Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik …
The Russian government is using both services to broadcast disinformation, which includes coverage of completely fictitious Ukrainian people supposedly supporting the invasion.
A large number of fake social media profiles have been created, using AI-generated faces. Posts by these non-existent people are being written in an attempt to discredit the Ukrainian government, and give the false impression that citizens of the country welcome Russia’s actions. These posts are then being reported on by Russian state media as if they were real.
CNET reports that Facebook was the first to act.
Facebook’s parent company Meta said Monday it will limit access to Russian state-controlled media outlets RT and Sputnik across the European Union […]
Facebook [was already] labeling state-controlled media publishers and barring ads from Russia state media. On Sunday, Meta also announced it removed a network of about 40 fake accounts, Pages and Groups on Facebook and Instagram from Russia and Ukraine. Meta said some of these accounts pretended to be news editors and ran fake news websites and published stories that included “claims about the West betraying Ukraine and Ukraine being a failed state.”
Engadget notes that TikTok followed suit.
TikTok has joined Facebook in blocking access to two Russian state media outlets in the European Union. Sputnik and RT are no longer able to post to audiences within the EU, and their pages and content will no longer be accessible to users in the bloc, a TikTok spokesperson confirmed.
Politico reports that YouTube took the same action.
Google’s YouTube said Tuesday that it would block Kremlin-backed media outlets RT and Sputnik from Europe following similar bans by Facebook and TikTok […]
Previously, the firms had stopped the likes of RT and Sputnik from earning money from advertising on their YouTube channels, or from buying ads to promote themselves on Facebook.
Reddit has responded to fake posts on r/Russia and /RussiaPolitics by removing a moderator responsible for some of them, and “quarantining” the subreddits, as Mashable explains.
Quarantined subreddits don’t show up in searches, recommendations, or feeds in which a user hasn’t specifically included them (such as r/Popular or r/All). Further, anyone who finds their way to a quarantined community is shown a warning regarding the content, which they must acknowledge in order to access it.
Microsoft is also taking action, including deranking RT and Sputnik on Bing “so that [a search] will only return RT and Sputnik links when a user clearly intends to navigate to those pages.”
Twitter is not blocking access to the two media outlets, but is ensuring they are clearly labeled with an alert reading “This Tweet links to a Russia state-affiliated media website.”
Today, we’re adding labels to Tweets that share links to Russian state-affiliated media websites and are taking steps to significantly reduce the circulation of this content on Twitter.
Finally, the US government is putting pressure on Chinese tech companies to join sanctions which limit the supply of tech products to Russia, says Bloomberg.
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