Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are being throttled by ISPs and carriers in Russia amid charges of censorship, making it difficult for individuals in Ukraine to keep up with the latest developments.
Apparently in reaction to their decision to ban deceptive advertising on their networks, Russia has throttled Facebook and Twitter.
State-run Russian media would no longer be allowed to advertise or monetise their content, Facebook said on Friday. Nathaniel Gleicher, the director of Facebook’s security policy, said on Twitter that the policy will be implemented over the weekend and that Meta, the company that owns Facebook, would maintain adding warnings to accounts associated with Russian state media.
Twitter said the same day that it was “temporarily halting adverts in Ukraine and Russia to guarantee that essential public safety information gets elevated and ads do not distract from it.” Twitter also said that it was “proactively examining tweets to identify platform manipulation,” as well.
Many people in Russia reacted to Facebook and Twitter in different ways. Reuters reports that Roskomandzor, Russia’s communications and technology regulator, has partly restricted access to Facebook because of concerns about censorship.
In a statement, the regulator said Meta had been requested to remove limitations and explain why they had been imposed. Facebook’s new restrictions were also accused of infringing “basic human rights and freedoms.”
State-owned media in Russia has urged Facebook to cease fact-checking and labelling its material, in a tweet from Facebook President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg. As Clegg put it, “We refused.
A throttling issue was discovered by Twitter users in Russia on Saturday; this has now been confirmed by the BBC and Internet connection monitoring service NetBlocks. At the time of writing, Roskomandzor had not issued a comment on Twitter.
Despite Russia’s limitations, Ukraine still has an Internet connection and a working communications system.
Twitter, Facebook, and other digital giants like Apple may face more limitations or an outright ban under Russian legislation, which requires that they create local offices or suffer other penalties. Russia’s government may impose more draconian requirements on companies who establish Russian headquarters.
As a result of the sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, Apple has already limited access to Apple Pay in Russia for certain Russian banks, but it may be obliged to suspend hardware sales in the future. Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has also written Apple to urge that it limit Russian access to the App Store.