The digital dimensions of Russia’s war, one year on
IN GLOBAL NEWS
Over the past year, the digital dimensions of Russia’s war in Ukraine have run the gamut from early efforts to re-route Ukrainian internet traffic to Russian networks to countless cyberattacks to major platform bans for Russian users. What I consistently hear from the Russian side is that, while the official bans on Facebook and Twitter have raised the barriers to finding unbiased information about the war (and all kinds of other things), people who want this stuff are using VPNs and other methods to get what they’re after. And while the platforms may be out of reach for the not-so-tech savvy, they still are being used by the Kremlin and its allies to promote its agenda, despite some companies’ efforts to reduce their digital power.
In one recent example, Meta has been on the hook for hosting divisive political ads in Moldova that were purchased by an exiled Russian oligarch, Ilan Shor, in what looks like an effort to destabilize the already fragile Eastern European nation. The ads promoted public protests against the generally pro-Western government, with the likely aim of pushing Moldova further into Russia’s sphere of influence. They were also purchased despite Shor being under sanctions by the U.S. — as a U.S. company, Meta shouldn’t be selling ads to Shor. It’s no surprise that this slipped through, since Facebook’s ad systems are almost entirely automated. But this still looks like a pretty big oops.
What role does online speech play in the escalating conflict in the West Bank? Activists in the region are tracking how images and videos of violence are being used to incite further attacks, following the killing of two Israeli brothers last weekend and the subsequent mob attack on the Palestinian community of Huwara. But they’re also bracing themselves for indiscriminate content removal, which has been a perennial issue during periods of heightened tensions, especially on platforms owned by Meta. Mona Shtaya, a Palestinian researcher who has studied bias in Facebook’s content moderation approach for some time, wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review this week about how her organization has become a de facto advocate for Palestinian speech on the platform, systematically documenting unjustified content removals, appealing to the company and, in many cases, winning their reinstatement. I’ll be keeping an eye out in the coming weeks to see how platforms’ decisions about political speech in Israel and Palestine play out at this moment of heightened violence.
CITIZEN SPIES
One of the most telling responses to the recent earthquake in Turkey and Syria was the Turkish government’s rapid rollout of “Disinformation Reporting Service,” an app where anyone can file reports about “manipulative” information in the news or on social media.