Amid the Russia-Ukrainian crisis, YouTube has commenced blocking channels connected to Russian state-backed media outlets, RT and Sputnik across Europe, the company operated by Alphabet Inc’s, Google said on Tuesday.
“It’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action,” Reuters quoted a YouTube spokesperson as saying.
YouTube’s action comes hours after Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc said it will restrict access to television network RT and news agency Sputnik on its platforms across the European Union, the company’s head of global affairs said on Monday.
Nick Clegg said in a Twitter post that the social media company received requests from a number of governments and the EU to take steps in relation to Russian State-controlled media on its platforms. Clegg said Meta would continue to work closely with governments on the issue.
Also, Twitter Inc has said that it would label tweets containing contents from the Russian state-controlled media and reduce their visibility.
The company had started adding labels and reducing the visibility for tweets containing content from Russian state-affiliated media websites like RT and Sputnik, the social media company said on Monday.
It said that since Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday, it had seen more than 45,000 tweets a day from people sharing these links. Twitter said this meant the majority of the content from state-affiliated media was coming from individuals sharing the material rather than the state-affiliated media accounts it already labelled.
