The Russia-Ukraine conflict has become one of the most talked about topics on social media. Many netizens share or listen to information related to this war through social media, including Twitter.
Social media such as Twitter and Facebook itself have been blocked in Russia since a few days ago. But that hasn't stopped Twitter's efforts to keep a close eye on the spread of misinformation related to this conflict.
Head of Site Integrity Twitter Yael Roth said there are currently several trends of misinformation and misleading information emerging amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict. One of them is media that is manipulated to present a misleading narrative and media that is shared out of context.
"We have taken action against tens of thousands of these tweets, ranging from labeling or asking the account owner to delete it if we think the post is dangerous," said Roth in a virtual press briefing on Twitter, Tuesday (8/3/2022).
"So by leveraging our synthetic and manipulated media policy, we have managed to tackle dozens of misleading narratives, which feature battles or events that are alleged to have taken place in Ukraine but actually originate from other sources."
One example of the media that Roth was referring to was a video showing footage of the shootout that took place in Ukraine. It turned out that the video that had gone viral on Twitter was a snippet of a video game that did look quite realistic.
In addition to monitoring misleading photos and videos, Twitter also monitors state-backed media because their tweets are potentially biased. Since some time ago, the company with the bird logo began to provide a special label for media accounts associated with the government.
Twitter itself has blocked media outlets for the Russian government, such as RT and Sputnik, before being blocked by Russian regulators.
"We're also taking steps to temporarily suspend recommended tweets for people in Ukraine, for people who don't follow certain accounts. We're doing this to try to reduce the spread of potentially harmful content," explains Roth.
To keep users safe in conflict areas, Twitter has also launched a 'Search and Home Timeline' which directs users to Twitter Moment which contains information about digital security in English, Ukrainian and Russian.
Roth did not specify so far how many tweets and accounts had been suspended or received warnings for violating Twitter's rules on misinformation related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. He said the Twitter team is currently focused on keeping the conversation public.
"As the dynamics on the ground change, so do the dynamics on Twitter and our team's main focus is protecting public conversations and we will share comprehensive data and findings thereafter."