Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked an information war that has turned social media into a key battlefield, exposing inconsistencies in how tech platforms respond to life-or-death crises.
The handling of messages about the war has shown how content moderation policies can change during times of crisis and has forced social media companies to take a stand on what speech is acceptable during times of war.
Even before Russian troops entered eastern Ukraine in late February, Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich PutinSenate Passes Resolution Supporting Putin’s War Crimes Investigation Trump Says He’s ‘Surprised’ That Putin Ordered an Invasion of Ukraine Lawmakers backed Biden on potential economic penalties for China to be denazified.
Ukraine has also taken advantage of digital communications to build broad support.
“Social media has played a huge role for the Ukrainian government,” Emerson Brooking, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, told The Hill. “Their ability to attract international attention and stimulate Western action in those early days was extraordinary, and I think this has contributed greatly to their ability to resist now.”
Faced with the prospect of both sides in the war seeking to control online narratives, social media companies have stepped into action.
Nearly all Western platforms have taken steps to reduce the reach of Russian state media such as RT and Sputnik. These decisions are not surprising, given both the widespread calls by world leaders to deplatform Russian media and the history of platforms labeling state media.
Other content moderation solutions have had fewer precedents.
Standing out is the decision by Meta – the newly formed parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – to allow some calls for violence against Russian troops.
The announcement, first reported by Reuters, drew sharp criticism. Civil rights groups chided Meta for allowing speech that could exacerbate conflict and pointed to the platform’s role in inciting votes against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Some pundits, including Brooking, have defended the permitted calls for violence against the Russian invaders.
“The Meta’s actual decision was an agreement with reality,” he explained.
“It seemed to me that the political leadership that we saw was essentially writing down what was standard policy,” Brooking added, pointing to how Facebook handled messages during the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
However, the way Meta publicly touted the policy adjustment and subsequently narrowed down allowed posts made the decision more difficult to accept.
“By announcing temporary exceptions, you will just raise more questions,” Paul Barrett, associate director of the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University, told The Hill. “Perhaps they should have tried to sneak past … and draw a distinction in the house between plausible plausible threats against a specific person and, you know, “death to Putin.” ”
The meta has also been criticized for allowing praise for the Ukrainian neo-Nazi military unit, the Azov Battalion, which was previously banned from discussion by Facebook’s policy on dangerous individuals and entities.
“For the moment, we are making a small exception to praise the Azov Regiment solely in the context of defending Ukraine or their role within the Ukrainian National Guard,” a Meta spokesperson said. “But we continue to ban any hate speech, hate symbolism, glorification of violence, general praise, support for or representation of the Azov Regiment, and any other content that violates our community standards.”
Twitter also made calls for content moderation related to the war, which caused confusion.
The platform determined that Senator Lindsey Graham’s tweet
Lindsay Olin Graham Senate Passes Resolution Supporting Putin’s War Crimes Investigation Lawmakers step up pressure on White House to uphold Poland’s plan Graham is silent on Supreme Court picking Biden. its rules for the time being, according to a Twitter spokesperson.
The war even forced TikTok, which was reluctant to publicly moderate content at all, to block users in Russia from posting videos in response to the country’s “fake news” law.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Barrett said, has resulted in social media companies “struggling to keep up with the situation and at times showing great uncertainty or clumsiness.”
The readiness of platforms to make such calls shows how flexible their rules can be in some crisis situations and remain relatively inflexible in others.
Critics argue that there is a double standard in how willing some tech companies are to take action in this conflict, allowing misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic to circulate on their websites with minimal intervention, for example.
“I think the last few weeks have set dramatic new precedents for technology policy and content moderation policy,” Brooking said. “It’s not yet clear where things will land… I hope that as long as we agree, it’s good that the precedent set here can be applied in the future to protect users in other contexts.”