Russia-Ukraine crisis: In a series of tweets, instant messaging app WhatsApp has shared a slew of measures by which the public can protect and safeguard their privacy for users in Ukraine as well as across the world. This comes in the wake of the ongoing Ukraine’s occupation by Russia. WhatsApp on its Twitter page wrote, “our thoughts are with everyone affected by the war in Ukraine. Here is some important information on how to protect and safeguard your privacy for our users in Ukraine and around the world.”
Additionally, Meta Platforms Inc released statement informing, “we’ve established a special operations center staffed by experts from across the company, including native Russian and Ukrainian speakers, who are monitoring the platform around the clock, allowing us to respond to issues in real time. We’ve added several safety features in Ukraine, including the ability for people to lock their Facebook profile, removing the ability to view and search friends lists, and additional tools on Messenger.”
Meta informed that the tech company is taking extensive steps to fight the spread of misinformation by expanding our third-party fact-checking capacity in Russian and Ukrainian and providing more transparency around state-controlled media outlets, “prohibiting ads from Russian state media and demonetizing their accounts.”
For greater protection, WhatsApp said, “we strongly recommend everyone enable two-step verification to protect against hackers that could try to lock you out of your account. You can also turn on fingerprint lock. When this is enabled, you’ll have to use your fingerprint to access the app.”
The instant messaging app also noted that due to the rapid-spreading of misinformation during such times, “as a reminder, we have limits on message forwarding and we label messages that haven’t originated with the sender so people are aware that something is information from a third party.
Meanwhile, the Meta release shared further details stating, “we’re removing content that violates our policies and working with third-party fact-checkers in the region to debunk false claims. When they rate something as false, we move this content lower in Feed so fewer people see it.” In response to the crisis, “we have expanded our third-party fact-checking capacity in Russian and Ukrainian languages across the region and are working to provide additional financial support to Ukrainian fact-checking partners. To supplement labels from our fact-checking partners, we are warning users in the region when they try to share some war-related images that our systems detect are over one year old so people have more information about outdated or misleading images that could be taken out of context,” it said.
Additionally, it said, “we’ve also made it easier for fact-checkers to find and rate content related to the war because we recognize that speed is especially important during breaking news events. We use keyword detection to group related content in one place, making it easy for fact-checkers to find. We’re also giving people more information to decide what to read, trust and share by adding warning labels on content rated false by third-party fact-checkers and applying labels to state-controlled media publishers.”
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