Russia-Ukraine War: Information warfare begins, focus moves to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook

Countries like US and UK are not only unveiling harsh new sanctions on Russia meant to punish the country for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but social media platforms such as Google’s YouTube has also come under pressure to remove or cut commercial ties with some of its most prolific pro-Russian channels.

The online video giant has a massive reach in Russia and has long been a popular platform for both government critics and state-backed media. But it is not just YouTube, Russia’s top five international state-backed media outlets have used Facebook and Twitter to share reports claiming that the Ukrainian military had committed unprovoked attacks on Russian-allied forces.

European Union sanctions report issued that Vladimir Solovyov, a pro-Putin TV and radio journalist behind a YouTube channel with more than 1 million subscribers, is known for his extremely hostile attitude toward Ukraine and praise of the Russian government. His four-hour video livestream published overnight on his YouTube channel about the Russian military attacks had over 2.7 million views within its first nine hours.

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YouTube said its teams were watching for so-called false flag operations, deceptive practices, hacking, phishing and incitement to violence.

Facebook, YouTube,Twitter and TikTok have invested billions of dollars over the past four years to improve algorithms that flag problematic posts and to hire thousands of contractors to scour the networks in search of harmful content. It is clear that information warfare will be front and center in the Russia-Ukraine war.