A man checks a smartphone for information while taking shelter in a metro station in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Thursday.
Daniel Leal/Getty Images
Facebook parent Meta and fellow social media giant Twitter reacted to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with pronouncements Friday about ads on their respective platforms. Meta said Russian state media would no longer be allowed to run ads, and Twitter said that for now, it’s halting ads in Ukraine and Russia.
“We are now prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or monetizing on our platform anywhere in the world,” Facebook’s head of security policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, said in a tweet. “We also continue to apply labels to additional Russian state media. These changes have already begun rolling out and will continue into the weekend.”
Meanwhile, the Twitter Safety account tweeted that Twitter is “temporarily pausing advertisements in Ukraine and Russia to ensure critical public safety information is elevated and ads don’t detract from it.”
Meta’s move followed a partial block on access to Facebook in Russia after the country’s communications regulator claimed the social network had censored some Russian media.
On Saturday, Twitter tweeted through its support account that “we aware that Twitter is being restricted for some people in Russia and are working to keep our service safe and accessible.”
Gleicher tweeted on Thursday that Meta had set up “a Special Operations Center to respond in real time” to the Ukraine crisis and had also launched a one-click tool that’s designed to let people in Ukraine quickly lock down their accounts. “When their profile is locked, people who aren’t their friends can’t download or share their profile photo or see posts on their timeline,” Gleicher said.
Twitter Safety also tweeted out tips on how users can protect their accounts.
