Social network Twitter cuts off Russia's propaganda tap
The social network Twitter restricts more than 300 Russian government accounts, official profiles of ministries and embassies, as well as the accounts of senior Russian officials.
AP - Richard Drew
Text by: Dominique Desaunay Follow
2 mins
The social network Twitter has announced new measures against Russian government accounts to reduce the circulation of Kremlin propaganda on the social network.
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Western internet platforms and social networks in particular have been waging a veritable online information war since the start of the Russian offensive in Ukraine on February 24.
The information on the Ukrainian conflict circulating on social platforms strongly displeases the authorities in Moscow.
And to curb any possible protest within its population, Russia has set up state censorship of the internet, the objective of which is to erase any reference to the deadly conflict in Ukraine.
This censorship fell indiscriminately on all the media in the country such as television, newspapers, but also on private individuals on social networks.
Internet users are prohibited, under penalty of imprisonment, from using the words “war” or “invasion” in their messages and even less from mentioning the massacres perpetrated by the Russian military against Ukrainian civilians.
And in order to better control the online distribution channels of Westerners, the Russian security service, the FSB, through a court in Moscow, simply decided to block certain social networks, in particular Facebook and Instagram, considering that they were carrying out “extremist” activities online and on its territory.
► To read also:
Russia: Facebook and Instagram "banned for extremist activity"
If Twitter was still accessible in Russia, its access was severely restricted for Internet users in the country.
This is one of the reasons why the Californian firm has just taken drastic measures against more than 300 official accounts of Vladimir Putin's government.
“
We will not facilitate the dissemination of messages from the government accounts of states that limit free access to information and are involved in armed conflicts, whether or not Twitter is blocked in a country
”, justifies the group.
Targeted accounts include official profiles of ministries and embassies, as well as accounts of senior Russian officials.
Concretely, they will no longer be “recommended” to platform users, in any of the categories of the website or through its mobile application.
Their messages will no longer be displayed in the news feed, searches carried out by Internet users on content that has already been published will not be referenced, specifies Twitter in its press release.
The social network also notes that its platform was ultimately only used to take up propaganda messages orchestrated by the Kremlin in the world.
And Twitter is determined to cut off the fake news tap from Russia.
The network also announces that it will demand the deletion of tweets published by media accounts affiliated with Vladimir Putin's state or government that share content depicting prisoners of war in the context of the conflict in Ukraine.
► Also to listen: State censorship
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