Leaders Of Four Countries Call On Social Media Giants To Do More To Fight Disinformation From Russia

Social media giants are being asked to do more to tackle disinformation about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. (photo: doc. unsplash)

JAKARTA – The Russian invasion of Ukraine last week has made the leaders of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia feel concerned. Moreover, the attack was also peppered with disinformation on social media.

They called on Alphabet, Google and its subsidiary YouTube, as well as Facebook and Twitter to do more to tackle disinformation related to the invasion.

In a joint letter to the chief executives of four companies dated February 27, the four prime ministers, criticized the US tech giant. They say what the US social media giant has done so far is inadequate.

"Although online platforms have made significant efforts to address the Russian government's unprecedented attack on the truth, they have not done enough," they said in the letter also cited by Reuters.

"Russian disinformation has been tolerated on online platforms for years. They are now an accessory to war or criminal aggression by the Russian government against Ukraine and the free world," they added.

They also urged companies to proactively suspend accounts that deny, praise or justify war of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity.

They also urged the tech giants to suspend the official accounts of Russian and Belarusian government agencies, as well as their state-controlled media, and the private accounts of state leaders and their associates who consistently spread disinformation about the situation in Ukraine.

The countries asked the companies to prevent Russian-controlled media from circumventing restrictions imposed by some national regulators on them.

The leaders of these four countries also called for online platforms to adapt their search algorithms and recommendations to inform users of disinformation and immediately delete all accounts controlled by the Russian and Belarusian governments.

Facebook was referring to a Sunday, February 27 tweet by its vice president Nick Clegg that said the company was reviewing other government requests to restrict Russian-controlled media.

We will continue to work closely with Governments on this issue.

— Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) February 28, 2022

They will also continue to label and fact-check these outlets and ban advertising and demoing their accounts globally. Clegg said in a tweet on Twitter.

If Facebook or Meta Platform Inc., have taken a stand, on the other hand Google and Twitter have not provided a clear response to the request of the leaders of the four countries.

Meanwhile Russia's state-controlled news service Sputnik said on Monday, February 28, that their Polish malicious site was no longer available to users. Sputnik also stated that Youtube had blocked his account in Poland.