From the beginning of the war, Twitter has actively sought to protect its platform and its users from misleading information. The company initially labeled Russian government-affiliated media tweets. Twitter then deleted a tweet from the Russian embassy in the UK. It denied targeting civilians and the destruction of a children’s hospital in Ukraine.
Thousands of tweets and accounts from Russia have been removed
In addition to deleting hundreds of thousands of tweets, Twitter has also deleted 75,000 accounts due to “inauthentic behavior” and spam. Last month, the hashtag #IStandWithPutin went viral on Twitter, with most tweets reportedly sent by bots and trolls. Most of the deleted tweets and accounts today are related to this hashtag. Twitter’s new campaign mostly targeted content that recirculated old conflict footage and claimed it was for the Russia-Ukraine war. Some targeted accounts also ran fundraising scams.
This could be Twitter’s greatest campaign against misinformation
Twitter is proactively removing any content that might mislead users, whether from regular users or state media. Twitter has previously promised not to amplify tweets from users that included links to state-affiliated media. This could limit those tweets’ reach by 30%. However, unlike streaming platforms like Roku, Twitter still allows two giant Russian state media, RT and Sputnik, to continue to operate on the platform with their verified accounts. But their tweets have labels to warn users about the affiliations of these media. Of course, RT and Sputnik are banned from running ads on Twitter and Facebook. The Russian government and its regulatory agencies have cut off access to Western platforms like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. However, government-affiliated individuals and media outlets are actively disseminating fake news, images, and videos of the war to influence people worldwide. Speaking of misinformation, the European Union (EU) has recently asked Google to remove Russian-affiliated news websites from its search results in the continent.
