Tech companies have sought to deplatform RT, Sputnik and other Russian state media dispensing disinformation about the invasion in Ukraine.
The Silicon Valley giants are relying on playbooks they’ve crafted over the last decade or so as they enter largely uncharted territory in responding to an unprecedented military conflict in the social media age.
Platforms are abiding by widespread calls from global leaders to block content from Kremlin-controlled media, but are trying to strike a balance to leave their platforms open for Russian civilians to communicate.
Starting last week, companies began to take action against Russian state media by demonetizing content from such publishers. Later, amid pressure from global leaders and after the European Union issued sanctions on Russian state-controlled media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media companies restricted access to the outlets through their platforms in Europe.
Reddit went a step further on Thursday, announcing it is restricting Russian state media outlets universally across the platform “in all geographies.” Also on a global scale, Facebook and Twitter said they would demote content from Russian state media to make it less accessible.
While the social media industry seems to be taking a widespread, full-throttle approach to restrict Russian state media now, April Glaser, a senior internet policy fellow at the Harvard Shorenstein Center, said the platforms are following a pattern they’ve set in the past — taking action after a crisis “has begun to swell.”
“These Kremlin backed media operations have been operating and monetizing on these platforms for years, and we’re seeing them take action now long after the Russian state media has been using disinformation to justify an invasion of Ukraine,” Glaser said.
If the tech companies had spent the last decade “more proactive in recognizing what kinds of threats state sponsored disinformation networks pose to the internet ecology,” it would be less challenging now to combat the Russian disinformation, said American University professor Aram Sinnreich.
“While they’re certainly doing more than lip service now, they also don’t have anything close to like a kill switch. They don’t have any comprehensive strategy to counter these networks and that’s a problem,” he said.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) sent a letter last week to a wide array of tech companies, urging them to ramp up efforts to curb Russian information operations. He commended the action they’ve taken since then, but also made a push for more regulation to hold the companies accountable.
“I commend these platforms, but the truth is, at this moment in time when these companies have such enormous power, I shouldn’t have to rely on their goodwill,” Warner said Monday during an interview with Washington Post Live.
“I commend them right now, but we need some rules of the road going forward because, whether it’s in peace or war, these companies have unparalleled power,” he added.
Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg indicated the company is open to taking more aggressive action in the future, such as potentially removing Russian government accounts, but for now will stay on its current course.
“This is such an unprecedented and horrifying set of events,” Clegg told reporters earlier this week. “I really can’t predict to you how they’re going to unfold, [let] alone how we are going to have to adapt to and respond to them.”
“I don’t want to pretend that things are, sort of, off the table,” he added. “We all feel, I think the whole world feels, we are entering into territory here. So of course we’ll keep an open mind. But we will continue along the sort of trendlines, all other things being equal, that we’ve set out to you today.”
As the platforms grapple with government requests to restrict Russian disinformation, they’re also facing threats from Russia that the country will cut off access to their sites for the Russian public. Even before Facebook announced it would restrict access to Kremlin-controlled outlets in the EU, Russia said it would limit access to Facebook.
So far, Russia’s throttling effects on Facebook have been seen mostly on video and other multimedia content, Clegg said.
“The Kremlin will definitely use this as an excuse to justify taking down those network platforms. The Kremlin would have done it anyway,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow and head of the Alliance for Securing Democracy’s information manipulation team.
Russia’s military invasion into Ukraine, though its scale is unprecedented in the years of social media prominence, is not the first military conflict to arise during that time.
Sinnreich said the companies haven’t “learned their lessons very well” from the previous instances — arguing they have failed to take a proactive approach.
“It’s not because they’re stupid, it’s actually a strategic, it’s a strategic kind of ignorance,” Sinnreich said.
“The problem is that social media need to maintain a plausible degree of neutrality and ignorance regarding the information that traverses their networks so that they can avoid being more heavily regulated,” he said.
This time, the companies are heavily leaning on government requests as their reason for restricting access. It’s a key difference from previous instances when they have made decisions to moderate content, which have largely been based on their own internal terms and policies.
That reasoning may pose challenges going forward, as the companies face continued calls for content moderation in the U.S. and abroad.
“We’ve seen a lot of pushback against attempts to regulate these companies or attempts to get them to be more accountable for the information that people receive on their channels. And they’re showing that they’re fully capable of making these editorial decisions or decisions in the public interest,” Glaser said.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how they’re, how they push back on requests from the United States and other governments who may also want to see faster firm action to keep places where people get information functioning healthily,” she added.
The response from tech companies is also different than in previous conflicts because Russia is more adept at manipulating social media platforms than other combatants, Schafer said.
“We are seeing a kind of different calculus here because it’s Russia. And they’re just a different player,” he said.
On the other side of the conflict, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other leaders have been successful at using social media to push back on the Russian disinformation “playbook,” said Jason Blazakis, Director of the Middlebury Institute’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism.
“We’re also seeing that Ukrainian messaging, and genuine messaging, is actually in some ways, talking about the truth of the situation, is actually refreshingly winning the battle against disinformation and misinformation right now. And I think it’s a testament to Zelensky’s communication skills, and this is to me one of the refreshing aspects of a very sad situation,” Blazakis said.