Meta shut down a network of 40 accounts trying to spread fake news about Ukraine on Facebook and Instagram.
The ongoing Ukrainian-Russian conflict is the first war in Europe to be fully followed on social media, and it is not uncommon for the most important announcements to be made on these platforms. While this has its advantages, there is no doubt that these platforms allow even greater scope for the spread of disinformation, i.e. deliberate misinformation.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said in a statement announcedthat a network of around 40 accounts, pages and groups that tried to undermine the Ukrainian government's activities while praising Putin's decisions has been shut down. According to the company, members of the network had created independent pages and were reportedly present on Twitter, Telegram, YouTube and two Russian social networking sites, in addition to Instagram and Facebook. However, the team did not gain many followers, with a total of 4,000 people on Facebook and only 500 on Instagram following their pages.
Facebook has meanwhile added a privacy feature introduced for those affected by the war in Ukraine. The profile lock means that users who are not familiar with the profile will not be able to see the content shared, nor will they be able to download or share the profile photo.
