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Tech companies have taken increasing action to deplatform Russian state media outlets spreading disinformation about the military invasion of Ukraine. Russia retaliated on Friday by blocking access to Facebook.
Meanwhile, the White House endorsed a cyber bill that has divided the Senate and members of the Biden administration.
Let’s jump into the news.
Russian state media in tech giants’ crosshairs 
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.”
RUSSIA REACTS
Russia is blocking access to Facebook amid its invasion of Ukraine as it seeks to crack down on social media and dissenting views on the war within its borders.
The government said the move against Facebook is due to the platform’s “discrimination against Russian news media,” The New York Times reported.
Facebook immediately decried the decision, which it said would further cut off ordinary Russians from truthful information about their country’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Soon millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out,” Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a statement on Twitter. Meta is Facebook’s parent company.
“We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action,” he added.
White House backs cyber bill amid divisions
The White House has endorsed a cyber bill that has divided members of the Biden administration and Senate lawmakers.
National Security Council spokesperson Emily Horne told The Hill in a statement that “the administration supports final passage of Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 and appreciates Congress’s bipartisan work to draft the legislation.”
The bill, which unanimously passed in the Senate on Tuesday as part of a wider cybersecurity legislation package, would require companies in critical sectors to report cyberattacks and ransomware to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
“This legislation is a part of the administration’s comprehensive effort to modernize America’s cyber defenses and complements the President’s efforts to improve cybersecurity,” Horne added.
Earlier this week senior officials from the Department of Justice criticized the bill for a lack of direct reporting of cyber incidents to the FBI.
SUSPENDING SALES
Microsoft Corp. is suspending new sales of its products and services in Russia, the software giant announced Friday.
Microsoft joins a growing list of U.S. tech companies, including Apple and Dell Technologies, in cutting Russia off from key technologies following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and subsequent Western sanctions against Russia.
“Like the rest of the world, we are horrified, angered and saddened by the images and news coming from the war in Ukraine and condemn this unjustified, unprovoked and unlawful invasion by Russia,” Microsoft president Brad Smith wrote in a blog post.
TWITTER EXPANDS ‘BIRDWATCH’
Twitter is expanding its user generated fact-checking program “Birdwatch,” the company said Friday.
After testing Birdwatch with 10,000 users in a pilot program over the last year, the community generated notes will start appearing on tweets to a larger group of users on Twitter in the U.S.
Users will also be able to rate the notes to provide further input.
In order for a note to appear on a tweet, it needs to be rated helpful by “enough” Birdwatch contributors from “different perspectives,” Twitter’s vice president of product Keith Coleman said in a blog post.
Siemens to boost domestic production
Siemens USA announced at an event with President Biden on Friday that it is investing $54 million to expand production in the U.S.
The technology company’s investment will create 300 manufacturing jobs, making critical electrical infrastructure that supports electric vehicle chargers, data centers to industrial sites and other technology.
Barbara Humpton, president and CEO of Siemens USA, made the announcement alongside Biden on Friday and announced that this spring, Siemens will identify the location of a new EV charging manufacturing hub to produce over a million EV chargers over the next four years.
BITS AND PIECES
An op-ed to chew on: Get ready for Russia’s cyber retaliation
Lighter click: A layered protest
Notable links from around the web:
How shunning Russia could offer the U.S. tech giants an easy win (Politico / Emily Birnbaum)
Bill in Washington State Would Be First to Bar Uber and Lyft Drivers from Being Classified As Employees (The Markup / Dara Kerr and Maddy Varner)
Putin No Longer Seems Like a Master of Disinformation (The New York Times / Farhad Manjoo)
One last thing: Times workers vote for union
Tech workers at The New York Times voted to unionize, becoming the largest active tech union in the country.
A National Labor Relations Board vote Thursday resulted in a majority of the more than 500 software engineers and product designers who cast ballots deciding to unionize.
The tech workers will be represented by the NewsGuild-CWA, the union that already includes The Times’s newsroom.
“The National Labor Relations Board has confirmed what we have known to be true: support for a union is strong among tech workers at the New York Times,” the Tech Guild said. “With this election result, the hundreds of us who work on New York Times websites and apps will finally have a real seat at the table and a meaningful say in our pay, benefits, and working conditions.”
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s technology and cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you Monday.