Following Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine, video sharing company TikTok has joined other mainstream media businesses in restricting Russian government-controlled media accounts on its platform.
This comes as a result of international pressure on all social media platforms to limit Russian propaganda and contain any information Russian media may broadcast about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
A spokeswoman for TikTok verified this to The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), claiming that the media company has been in contact with the European Union and has curtailed access to Russian official media.
TikTok was also restricting two Russian media outlets, Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik in the European Union, according to National Public Radio (NPR). As a result, people in nations within the European Union who use the platform will be unable to view material posted on those media sources.
Furthermore, on her Twitter page, European Union President Ursula Von Der Leyen declared a ban on the two Russian media sites operating on EU territory. Second, the Kremlin’s media machine will be banned in the EU, “she tweeted. Russia Today and Sputnik, both owned by the Russian government and its subsidiaries, will no longer be able to promote their lies to justify Putin’s war. We’re working on tools to make it illegal for them to use harmful disinformation in Europe. “
Microsoft reacts…
Microsoft in response to the decision by the European Union to ban Russian media in Europe stated in their blog post “Microsoft on the issues” that they would remove RT and Sputnik content from its App Store and all its sites.
“We are moving swiftly to take new steps to reduce the exposure of Russian state propaganda, as well to ensure our platforms do not inadvertently fund these operations. Following the EU’s recent decision, the Microsoft Start platform (including MSN.com) will not display any state-sponsored RT and Sputnik content.
“We are removing RT news apps from our Windows app store and further de-ranking these sites’ search results on Bing so that it will only return RT and Sputnik links when a user intends to navigate to those pages. Finally, we are banning all advertisements from RT and Sputnik across our ad network and will not place any ads from our ad network on these sites,” Microsoft said.
The world is responding to the attacks of Russia on Ukraine and continues to side with the Ukrainian government as they defend their home from the attacks of the Russian government.
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