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Social Media Giants Struggle to Combat Russian Disinformation Amid Ukraine War

As the war in Ukraine rages on, Russia is ramping up one of its most powerful weapons: disinformation. Social media companies find themselves scrambling to respond, often with inconsistent and inadequate measures that experts say fail to address the scope of sophisticated propaganda campaigns.

False claims about the invasion have spread widely from both Russian users and official state media accounts. These include conspiracy theories that the US was providing biological weapons to Ukraine—a claim denounced by the White House—and that victims of an attack on a Ukrainian hospital were paid actors.

In response, tech giants including Meta, YouTube, and Twitter have announced waves of new measures, prompted by pressure from the Ukrainian government, world leaders, and the public. However, digital rights experts criticize these efforts as haphazard and insufficient.

“By and large, platforms have responded to the challenge of state-backed disinformation campaigns by playing a futile game of Whac-a-Mole,” said Evan Greer, deputy director of digital rights non-profit Fight for the Future.

Instead of removing misleading content, companies often merely flag it as potentially false or state-sponsored. When they do take action, it frequently comes too late. YouTube, for example, only recently moved against state-sponsored disinformation after weeks of pressure from human rights advocates—but not before that content was widely shared and viewed thousands of times.

Meta caused confusion with its surprising decision to make temporary exceptions to its rules against calls for violence, allowing users in 12 eastern European and western Asian countries to call for death to Russian soldiers. The company later clarified that calls for the death of Vladimir Putin or other leaders remain prohibited, highlighting the seemingly ad-hoc nature of policy decisions during the crisis.

Existing policies are also inconsistently enforced. A study by the Center for Countering Digital Hate examined 3,593 recent articles posted by Russian state news sources and found Facebook failed to label 91% of the posts as state-sponsored.

The biological weapons conspiracy theory has proven particularly persistent on YouTube. Media Matters for America found the platform not only failed to remove videos promoting these false claims but also profited from them through monetized channels.

“Despite their stated policies, many of these platforms are not labeling disinformation and propaganda appropriately, and that’s a big problem,” said Heidi Beirich, an expert on extremism at the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism.

Critics point to the fundamental business model of these platforms as the root problem. “Instead of calling for more aggressive platform-level censorship, we should focus on monopoly power and the way that big tech platforms are designed,” Greer argued. As long as engagement metrics drive success, there remains little incentive to crack down on sensationalist content that generates significant traffic.

TikTok has emerged as a new and often overlooked frontier for disinformation. The platform’s design, which makes it easy to splice videos, images, and sounds together, creates fertile ground for spreading misleading content.

“TikTok by its very design is meant to make it easy to splice videos, images, and sounds together, and that’s a useful tool for those attempting to push disinformation,” said Cindy Otis, a disinformation expert.

Research suggests some misinformation efforts may be coordinated by Russia. Media Matters identified over 180 Russian influencers on TikTok participating in a propaganda campaign to promote support for Russia’s war, sharing hundreds of posts with the hashtag #RussianLivesMatter.

TikTok has suspended its services in Russia to avoid Kremlin action, though some influencers there appear to still be posting. The company says it has implemented policies to combat misinformation and has expedited labeling of state media accounts.

Meanwhile, the tech response has created a complicated situation within Russia itself. As platforms including Netflix and TikTok voluntarily reduce their presence, and others like Instagram are blocked by the government, the Russian state’s monopoly over information tightens—a concerning development in a country where independent media was already under threat.

“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,” noted Nick Clegg, president of global affairs for Meta.

The situation parallels China’s long-standing information control regarding its treatment of Uyghur people, which the US has described as genocide. Social media companies have been accused of indirectly supporting human rights abuses by allowing misinformation to spread and sometimes even accepting advertising from governments behind these actions.

“We have all looked the other way with what social media firms are enabling in China, and now we are seeing it happen again,” Beirich said. “The big question for all of us is: what are the base values we should have around information? This is showing why we want protected, free, and fair internet.”

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28 Comments

  1. Interesting update on Russian Disinformation Continues to Proliferate Across Social Media Platforms. Curious how the grades will trend next quarter.

  2. William Garcia on

    Interesting update on Russian Disinformation Continues to Proliferate Across Social Media Platforms. Curious how the grades will trend next quarter.

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