Editorial: Tech must stop allowing spread of Russian disinformation

Russia’s decision Friday to block access to Facebook illustrates why the tech industry years ago should have stopped allowing the spread of propaganda and disinformation on its platforms.

The war in Ukraine is hardly the first time that Russian President Vladimir Putin abused the internet to further his goals. The brutality that took place in Syria, Georgia and Crimea should have spurred social media platforms to block Putin’s use of propaganda to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

We acknowledge the tech industry’s desire to ensure Russian users have access to independent information on global affairs. And we have long supported the free flow of information on the internet. But that shouldn’t extend, for example, to knowingly false statements of fact, hate speech and speech that incites violence or lawless action.

Putin’s disinformation machine creates a firehose of falsehoods that diminishes and disrupts truthful reporting and messaging. It damages the integrity of the platforms themselves. And in times of crisis, Putin’s authoritarian government was inevitably going to shut down access to Western social media platforms.

The Ukraine war shows the folly of tech companies’ belief that they can walk the geopolitical tightrope of not choosing sides during a major international conflict.

RT and Sputnik, the major Kremlin-backed media outlets, have repeatedly pushed the false charge that Putin’s invasion was in response to Ukrainian aggression. NPR reports that RT has more than 7 million followers on its Facebook page and 4.6 million subscribers to its main YouTube channel. RT repeatedly responded to charges that Putin was preparing to invade Ukraine by having its commentators announce that Russia “has zero plans to attack its neighbor.”

In the wake of the invasion, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, sent letters asking Apple, Google, Netflix and YouTube to restrict services to Russia.

Western governments demanded that social media companies remove Kremlin disinformation from their platforms. The European Union announced a complete ban on Russian state media.

Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, said that Facebook would comply by restricting access to the Kremlin-backed news outlets RT and Sputnik in the EU. Google blocked YouTube channels of the Russian media outlets, and TikTok and Microsoft followed suit. Apple closed its retail stores and stopped all product sales in Russia and limited its Apple Pay and Apple Maps services.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Parliament passed a new law that allows anyone intentionally spreading “fake news” about the military to be jailed for up to 15 years.

The tech industry cannot fulfill its role as a responsible conduit of news and social discourse until it commits to removing propaganda and misinformation from its platforms.