Even as the global technology majors have slapped harshest sanctions on technology proliferation and curbs on online Russian propaganda regarding war in Ukraine, the latter has accused the American Big Tech companies to have failed miserably.
According to Ukraine, top US tech companies including Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube though claimed to have restricted or blocked Russian state-run media accounts during the early stages of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but the reality is that they are now unable to keep pace with the evolving Russian propaganda techniques with the war entering its sixth month.
Earlier these companies reduced their ad sales in Russia and increased their fact-checking efforts. Thousands of tweets, YouTube videos, and other social media posts have been reported as Russian propaganda which Ukraine claims the companies are now less willing to remove.
According to new research provided to The Washington Post by a non-profit organisation based in Europe, many of these requests appear to be going unanswered.
Meanwhile, Ukraine and its non-profit partners have been monitoring and flagging posts that use derogatory or dehumanising terms for Ukrainians to justify the war as Russian efforts shift away from state media megaphones to individual influencers and ‘troll armies’.
As per reports, more than 90% of the accounts responsible for such posts were still active as of late June, while up to 70% of the tweets and videos identified as anti-Ukrainian hate speech on YouTube and Twitter were still accessible.
The report also reveals that less than half of the posts that Ukrainian officials highlighted as examples of Russian propaganda justifying the war were removed from LinkedIn.
Even though many of the accounts responsible were still active, Facebook took down all 98 of the posts that the Ukrainian government and its allies had identified as containing anti-Ukrainian hate speech.
Researchers claim Russian authorities and influencers have switched to Telegram to conduct information campaigns via swarms of smaller accounts because huge state media accounts have been blocked or muffled.
