Facebook will try to continue to operate in Russia to offer a platform for ‘counter-speech’ to the propaganda coming from Russian-state controlled media, said Nick Clegg.
The UK’s former deputy prime minister, who is now the head of global affairs at Facebook’s parent company, Meta, said it is important for the platform to stay online in Russia to allow users to ‘access information and speak out’ against the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Yesterday, Clegg tweeted that the company has received requests from a number of Governments and the EU to take further steps in relation to Russian state controlled media.
‘Given the exceptional nature of the current situation, we will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time,’ said Clegg in the tweet.
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Clegg confirmed it would be demoting content from Russian state-backed media outlets, and organisations too.
‘In the days ahead, we will label these links so people who do see them will have context before clicking or sharing. We plan to take similar steps on Instagram as well,’ tweeted Nathaniel Gleicher, head of security policy at Meta.
1/ 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. These changes have already begun rolling out and will continue into the weekend.
— Nathaniel Gleicher (@ngleicher) February 26, 2022
Russia has limited access to Facebook and slowed the platform in response to the social network’s restrictions, with Clegg saying the firm had seen some ‘degradation’ of video content in particular.
But he said the platform’s priority is to provide services for ‘ordinary people to express themselves’ and that ‘the most powerful antidote to propaganda is not only restricting circulation but circulating the answers to it
