Meta, formerly Facebook, has announced that it has restricted access to several accounts, including some belonging to Russian state media, in Ukraine. “We have been in contact with the Ukrainian government. At their request, we have restricted access to several accounts in Ukraine, including those belonging to certain Russian state media organizations,” wrote Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at Meta, in a tweet. “We are also considering other government requests to restrict Russian state-controlled media. »
The actions taken by the social media giant follow Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began four days ago. Meta says it has set up a special operations center made up of “experts” from across the company, including native Russian and Ukrainian speakers, to monitor its platform and respond to misinformation issues in real time.
“We have teams of native Russian and Ukrainian content moderators to help us review potentially violent content. We’re also using technology to help us stagger the work of our content review teams and prioritize what content those teams should be spending their time on, so we can remove more violent content before it do not go viral, ”argues Mark Zuckerberg’s group.
Other features on WhatsApp
Meta’s leadership didn’t stop there. It says it has introduced new security features to keep Ukrainians safe. These include giving users the tool to lock their Facebook profile in one step, temporarily removing the ability to view and search Facebook accounts’ friend lists in Ukraine, and rolling out notifications for screenshots and to activate the disappearing messages function on Messenger.
The ‘single view media’ feature has also been enabled on WhatsApp to allow users to send photos or videos that may disappear after being viewed, as well as ‘passing messages’, which allow all messages to be automatically deleted. new threads after 24 hours. Meta also clarified that it is blocking Russian state media from advertising and making money on its platform.
“Our hearts go out to all those affected by the war in Ukraine. We are taking significant steps across all of our apps to keep our community safe and support people who use our services, both in Ukraine and around the world,” Meta management said in a post.
Operations in Russia continue
Meta’s vice president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, also tweeted that the group does not want to cease operations in Russia.
“People in Russia use FB [Facebook] and GI [Instagram] to protest and organize against war and as independent sources of information,” argues the former British politician. “The Russian government is already throttling our platform to prevent these activities. We believe disabling our services would silence an important expression at a crucial time,” he further said.
For its part, Twitter announces that it has also taken similar measures, including the suspension of advertisements in Ukraine and Russia “to ensure that critical public safety information is high and that the advertisements do not divert them”. Meanwhile, Twitch and OnlyFans have reportedly blocked access to their accounts to all users in Russia, preventing users from withdrawing money earned on their respective platforms, amid tougher sanctions against Russia.
Source: ZDNet.com