By Adedapo Adesanya
Following the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, top tech giants, including Twitter and Facebook have announced measures by blocking Russian media outlets from earning Dollars from adverts.
Twitter took action by temporarily pausing all ads in Ukraine and Russia “to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it.”
In a tweet – TwitterSafety wrote that “We’re temporarily pausing advertisements in Ukraine and Russia to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it.”
Facebook also announced on Twitter that the social media giant has restricted Russian state media’s ability to earn money on the social media platform as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The company’s security policy head, Mr Nathaniel Gleicher, wrote – “We are now prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or monetizing on our platform anywhere in the world. We also continue to apply labels to additional Russian state media.”
Mr Gleicher’s announcement came hours after Russia’s media regulator said it was limiting access to Facebook, accusing the company of censorship and violating the rights of Russian citizens.
Google also announced that it has blocked Russia’s state-owned media outlet RT and other channels from receiving money for ads on their websites, apps and YouTube videos.
Google’s spokesman, Mr Michael Aciman also mentioned that the Russian media won’t be able to buy ads through Google Tools or place ads on Google services such as Search and Gmail.
Google-owned YouTube said it was also suspending several Russian state-media channels, including RT, from making money from ads.
In addition, the online video platform is limiting recommendations to those channels and is blocking them entirely in Ukraine at the request of the Ukrainian government, according to a YouTube spokesperson.
The announcement follows rounds of joint sanctions imposed by Western governments against Russia for its unprovoked assault on Ukraine.
These tech giants have always met stiff hands from Russian authorities, last year it throttled access to Twitter after the company allegedly ignored requests to take down some posts and threatened similar action against Facebook and Google.
In December, a Russian court fined Meta 2 billion rubles, or about $27 million, for failing to remove content that Russia says violates its laws.
