On Monday, Twitter announced it will start adding a label to content that comes from Russian state-affiliated media sites.
According to Politico, “The company began labeling and de-amplifying official Russian media accounts in 2020, Twitter said. The additional action announced on Monday applies to individual Twitter accounts that share links from those state-affiliated sites.”
“Since the invasion, we’ve seen more than 45,000 Tweets a day from individuals on Twitter sharing these links — meaning that now the overwhelming majority of content from state-affiliated media is coming from individuals sharing this content, rather than accounts we’ve been labeling for years as state-affiliated media,” Twitter spokesperson Elizabeth Busby told the outlet in an email.
Twitter already has a list of media groups of the Russian Federation, as well as twenty additional countries. The “new label will automatically apply to any tweeted URLs from a designated state-affiliated media website,” per Politico.
“The social media company also announced it will continue to de-amplify articles from these websites by barring the URLs from the platform’s top search function,” it added. Twitter also will not “recommend” tweets that have articles from the websites.
In 2019, Twitter prohibited advertising from state-controlled media, but on Friday, the company said it was temporarily suspending all advertisements in Russia and Ukraine “to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it,” per NPR.
We’re temporarily pausing advertisements in Ukraine and Russia to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) February 25, 2022
Facebook and Youtube also said they would prohibit Russian state media from carrying out advertisements on their sites.
On Saturday, it appeared that Russia was blocking Twitter in the country.
Netblocks, an internet freedom tracking site, reported:
NetBlocks metrics confirm the restriction of Twitter in Russia from the morning of Saturday 26 February 2022. Facebook servers have subsequently been restricted as of Sunday. The restrictions are in effect across multiple providers rendering both social media platforms largely unusable, and come as Russian authorities and social media platforms clash over platform rules in relation to the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded the country of Ukraine several days ago and has launched a full-blown attack on the country. In astonishing acts of bravery and heroism, the world has watched as Ukrainian civilians have taken up arms to defend their nation.
Putin has also reportedly hired hundreds of Russian mercenaries to assassinate Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, per Ukrainian intelligence.
As The Daily Wire reported, “Russian forces have moved into parts of eastern Ukraine and made a concentrated effort to take the capital of Kyiv. For his part, Zelensky has continued to oversee the defense of Ukraine from Kyiv, often making appeals to allies in Europe and to the United States for aid and military support.”
“In a speech last week, Putin justified the invasion of Ukraine claiming that the former soviet state which elected a Jewish president was overrun with Nazis and needed to be purified. Putin also claimed that Ukraine is an ‘inalienable part’ of Russia,” The Daily Wire added.
“Ukraine is not just a neighboring country for us. It is an inalienable part of our own history, culture, and spiritual space. Since time immemorial, the people living in the south-west of what has historically been Russian land have called themselves Russians,” Putin said.
The situation in Ukraine continues to unfold.
On Sunday, the U.S. Embassy in Russia released an alert telling U.S. citizens to “consider departing Russia immediately via commercial options still available.”