MEMO TO META, TWITTER, & GOOGLE: Suspending Russian Government & Affiliated Accounts
DATE: 6 June 2022
TO:
● Nick Clegg, President, Global Affairs, Meta
● Sinéad McSweeney, Vice President of Global Public Policy, Twitter
● Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs, Google
FROM: The Digital Diplomacy Task Force
We, the Digital Diplomacy Task Force, a values-driven international team of professionals, appeal to you to revise the handling of the Russian government, Russian-government-funded, and affiliated accounts by the Meta, Twitter, and Google platforms.
We join the leaders of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Poland, Lithuania, and global civil society in seeking suspension of Russian government entities, politicians, lawmakers, affiliated/controlled media, and others who promote “propaganda for war” in Ukraine. These accounts routinely run afoul of your trust and safety policies and have been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union. A prohibition on these accounts will positively impact the transparency and integrity of democratic debate across your platforms while benefitting users in Ukraine, Russia, and globally.
THE CHALLENGE: The Russian government has banned its citizens from accessing and consuming Twitter and Google News while designating Meta as an extremist organization and prohibiting its services in Russia. At the same time, the Russian government continues to use those same platforms to justify its invasion of Ukraine and position itself as a legitimate stakeholder in democratic discussion online.
The Russian government’s acts to limit and block its citizens from accessing truthful information run counter to the mission and policies of Meta “to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.” The Russian government and its affiliated organizations have used Meta, Google, and Twitter platforms to divide and disinform.
Notably, Russia uses each of your platforms to promote its “propaganda for war,” and it does so in violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United Nations General Assembly defines and condemns such war propaganda as “all forms of propaganda, in whatsoever country conducted, which is either designed or likely to provoke or encourage any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”
The Kremlin officials, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova, and state-sponsored propaganda media chief Margarita Simonyan, each of whom has been sanctioned by the United States and the European Union, have continued to exploit your platforms in violation of your trust and safety guidelines and community standards.
The Facebook Community Standards on Dangerous Individuals and Organizations state that “[i]n an effort to prevent and disrupt real-world harm, we do not allow organizations or individuals that proclaim a violent mission or are engaged in violence to have a presence on Facebook. We assess these entities based on their online and offline behavior, most significantly, their ties to violence.”
Similarly, Twitter has recently stated that “when a government blocks or limits access to online services within their state, undercutting the public’s voice and ability to access information freely, but continues to use online services for their own communications, a severe information imbalance is created” and in turn leads to “acute harms.”
And likewise, Google has said that “our Community Guidelines prohibit content denying, minimizing, or trivializing well-documented violent events, and we remove content about Russia’s invasion in Ukraine that violates this policy.”
NEED FOR ACTION: Members of the Russian state apparatus (including its lawmakers, sponsored and affiliated media, and state-affiliated experts) who promote wartime propaganda, are party to or support the Ukraine invasion, and engage in broader human rights abuse and/or censorship should not have a presence on digital platforms like Meta, Twitter, and Google. These accounts should be suspended until Russia ceases its occupation of Ukraine and other sovereign states like Georgia.
In recent months, Russia has exceeded its longstanding methods of spreading disinformation. If the Russian state narratives previously included a fraction of the truth, the Kremlin now pushes outright fabrications, such as this claim that the United States runs biological weapons programs in Georgia and Ukraine. These are not benign falsehoods. Russia has and will likely continue to use these fabricated narratives as a pretext to invade sovereign countries, as it did in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. A global ban of Russian state actors from your platforms will signal to other authoritarian actors that weaponizing social media against democracy will not be tolerated.
THE IMPACT: We praise the decisions by Meta, Google, and Twitter to take steps to restrict Russia’s state-sponsored media outlets like RT and Sputnik and to label government accounts. In doing so, you have acknowledged the threat of such actors. But without a holistic approach and a global ban, Russian state-sponsored disinformation will continue to erode the safety and security of those in Ukraine and elsewhere.
An effective and persistent redress to Russian misinformation, malinformation, and disinformation online can only be achieved if Russian state-controlled and related accounts are suspended globally. Their restriction or abolishment in a given geographic area, such as Ukraine or the European Union, is insufficient. The Kremlin’s disinformation machinery relies on a global network of social media assets. It will undertake or amplify an international manipulation or propaganda campaign using any channel at its disposal.
WHY DO WE CARE? Our pro-bono Task Force is an emergency response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We strive to contribute to safer and transparent discussion online. In the spirit of discourse, we look forward to hearing back from you and engaging further.
