Much of the world is watching the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on social media. Russia has waged its own forces against major social media platforms and services in an attempt to control the narrative coming out of Ukraine.
The major platforms have taken firm stances against Russian state-sponsored messages, and Ukrainian and Russian civilians seem to have found their way around such measures. The internet is standing up to Russia.
The use of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube has helped spread awareness of what is happening in Ukraine. Russia has been unsuccessful in controlling them.
Russia's communications regulator accused Facebook of censoring the accounts of four state-sponsored media sites. The country restricted access to Facebook for its civilians.
Meta's vice president of global affairs said in a statement that Russia asked the company to stop fact-checking and labeling posts from those accounts, and when they refused, Russia restricted access to those accounts. According to NPR, Meta seems to remain steadfast in its efforts to curb misinformation on its sites, and has also chosen to block Russian state media from running any ads on Facebook or to monetize in any way.
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Russia's ability to profit off of content across its services has been paused. The Ukrainian government requested that YouTube block state-sponsored ads from Russian channels on its platform, and that it limit video recommendations to Russian channels.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian government requested that the RT app be banned in the country, according to a report. Existing users will still be able to access the app, but new users will not be able to download it.
State-controlled ads have been banned on the social media site. In response to the conflict, the platform is temporarily pausing all ads in Ukraine and Russia, regardless of the source, to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don't detract from it.
NetBlocks, a internet watchdog group, says that Russia is limiting the use of social media. When asked about the block, a spokesman for the company pointed us to a statement on the company's belief in free and open access to the internet.
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The situation in Eastern Europe is monitored by all three major platforms and they plan on taking action against any rule-violating activities. The accounts of high profile journalists, activists, and government officials have been protected by additional actions taken by Twitter. According to NPR, Meta has created a special operations center to keep tabs on Russia's activity on its platforms, and YouTube has already taken down hundreds of channels and thousands of videos for violating its policies.
The official account of the Ukrainian government said it would accept donations in the form of cryptocurrencies. More than $9 million has been raised in cryptocurrencies for Ukraine.
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Decentralized organizations can accept other forms of donations as well, while the country is officially accepting donations viaCryptocurrencies. The dollar is pegged to the US dollar, but it has been in such high demand that it is now trading above the dollar at $1.10.
People in Ukranian have reported that their credit cards have stopped working, and that the most feasible option is to use cryptocurrencies.
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Vitalik Buterin, a Russian-born creator of ether, said that the invasion was a crime against Ukrainian and Russian people.
Russia has pushed for a total ban on cryptocurrencies and continues to talk about the conflict on its own account. It is unlikely that Russia will be soliciting the same amount of donations in the future.
Telegram is the most popular messenger in Ukranian, and while many believe it to be protected, rival app Signal's founder posted a thread explaining Telegram's cloud-based nature, detailing the possible threat from Russia.
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While this doesn't guarantee a mass Ukrainian exodus from the potentially jeopardized app, the thread brings awareness to alternatives, as well as a feature within Telegram called secret messages, that would provide more privacy and security for those who remain on the service.
The Russian invasion began at the same time that Cloudflare saw a huge spike in Signal usage. Cybersecurity experts agree that Signal is the most secure private messaging app.
Many are trying to get around online censorship in Russia and Ukraine.
Yev Muchnik is a lawyer who has lived in the U.S. since 1988 and is currently working with developers to combat internet access attacks. Their goal is to create peer-to-peer mesh networks to preserve internet connection even if internet service providers go down.
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TikTok is one of the social platforms that gives a view of what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. TikTok videos had been showing Russian military weapons and vehicles on their way to the Ukrainian border.
More social posts are claiming to show the real day-to-day life in Russia and Ukraine right now.
Independent Russian journalist Ilya Varlamov has used social media to document Russia's actions in Ukraine. A video showing an anti-war protest was posted by a Russian TikTokker. According to The Guardian, Anna Prytula showed footage of missiles attacking in Ukraine on her social media account.
Even as Ukrainian and Russian residents are publishing real-time, truthful videos, fake war pages and accounts on platforms likeInstagram and TikTok have also taken the opportunity to reel in views and followers.
TikTok told Business Insider that they continue to closely monitor the situation, with increased resources to respond to emerging trends and remove violative content, including harmful misinformation and promotion of violence. We work with independent fact-checking organizations to aid our efforts to help TikTok remain a safe and authentic place.
While the platforms are presumably working to take down blatant misinformation, journalists like those at CNN are also actively fact-checking viral videos in order to ensure that any first person accounts from Russian military action is accurate.
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