Twitter Will Label Tweets Linking To Russian State-Backed Media Like RT And Sputnik

Topline

Twitter announced Monday it will label and limit the reach of tweets linking to Russian state-affiliated news sources, hours after the European Union said it would ban Russian state-funded outlets RT and Sputnik, which the EU accused of spreading lies and justifying Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Twitter has labeled posts linking to Russian state-affiliated media.

Twitter

Key Facts

The new label will only encourage users to “stay informed,” and appear on tweets that share information from Russian state-affiliated media accounts—but will not appear on tweets from those accounts because they are already labeled with “Russia state-affiliated media,” Twitter said.

Tweets sharing Russian state media content will not be recommended by Twitter and will be blocked from appearing on Twitter’s “Top Search” function.

Most Russian state media content on Twitter is being spread through individual sharing and not directly from those media outlets’ accounts, meaning most people were seeing that content without visible labels, Twitter said.

Since Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine Thursday, more than 45,000 tweets per day have been posted sharing links to Russian state media, according to Twitter.

Twitter said it intends to apply similar measures to state media content from other countries in the coming weeks.

Key Background

In 2017, Twitter banned advertising from RT and Sputnik after U.S. intelligence concluded that both outlets tried to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In 2018, the platform extended this ban to all state news media advertising. In August 2020, Twitter began labeling and “de-amplifying” state-affiliated accounts from Russia, China, the U.K., the U.S. and some other countries. In the days following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both Twitter and Facebook were reportedly restricted in Russia after the Russian government denounced Facebook’s fact-checking mechanisms as “censorship.” As well as Sputnik and RT, two of the most internationally known Russian state media outlets, Facebook has targeted Russia’s RIA Novosti, Zvezda TV network, Gazeta.Ru and Lenta.ru. Friday, U.S. Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) asked Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, Google parent Alphabet and other tech companies to do more to limit the spread of Russian propaganda and to prevent Russian state-owned media companies from monetizing ads including content related to the war in Ukraine.

Crucial Quote

“As this conflict continues, we can expect to see an escalation in Russia’s use of both overt and covert means to sow confusion about the conflict and promote disinformation narratives that weaken the global response to these illegal acts,” Warner said.

Contra

Beginning in May 2020, Twitter has added warning labels to posts including “disputed or misleading” claims about Covid-19—including, during the election, to posts by President Donald Trump. (Twitter eventually banned Trump “due to the risk of further incitement of violence” following the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.) Twitter has yet to implement a similar system for posts about the Ukraine crisis.

Tangent

Though Twitter labels accounts for news outlets where the state exerts direct or indirect editorial influence, state-funded outlets Twitter regards as editorially independent, such as NPR or the BBC, are not labeled.