Following Russia’s war on Ukraine, multiple tech majors from the US have announced various actions against Russian media outlets such as removing their apps, restricting access to their platforms, and stopping their ad revenues
Russian media outlets put under several restrictions from American tech majors amid the Russia-Ukraine war. (Credit: Pixelkult from Pixabay)
American tech majors Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and Twitter are taking a series of actions against Russian state-controlled media outlets such as RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik News in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Internet major Google has blocked mobile apps associated with Sputnik and RT from its Play Store, reported Reuters. The Alphabet-owned company had earlier decided to remove Russian state-owned publishers from its news-related features.
Google had also stopped RT and other Russian media outlets from receiving ad revenue from their websites, apps, and YouTube channels.
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, had restricted access to RT and Sputnik across the European Union (EU).
The social technology company said that it is now demoting content globally from Facebook pages and Instagram accounts from Russian state-controlled media outlets and making them difficult to find across its platforms.
Meta has also started to demote posts having links to Russian state-controlled media websites on the Facebook platform.
In the coming days, Meta plans to label the links and give more information to its users before they either share or click to inform them that they will be redirected to Russian state-controlled media websites. Similar measures are planned to be enforced on the Instagram platform, said Meta.
Earlier this week, Microsoft said that it will remove RT news apps from the Windows app store and further de-rank RT and Sputnik search results on Bing.
Microsoft will also ban all advertisements from the two Russian media outlets across its ad network and will not put up any ads from its ad network on their websites.
Apple has also pulled out RT and Sputnik associated apps from the App Store.
Microblogging platform Twitter, on the other hand, said that it will label tweets with links to Russian government-backed media and restrict their reach.