Twitter Blocks Accounts for posting videos of Russian Attack on Ukraine

The Russian army has been marching in Ukraine for the last couple of days, social media accounts sharing the actual situation in the country is the only source to get to know about the state of the country. People were sharing footages of the Russian helicopters invading, troops marching in and tanks moving to the borders from areas of Donbas and Luhansk regions. As the situation got worsened, many researchers realized that their accounts have been blocked by Twitter. They were sharing the primary material from open-source OSINT (Open-source intelligence). Twitter Blocks Accounts for posting videos of Russian Attack on Ukraine.

Many researchers on the night of 22^nd February night and 23^rd February morning complained that their accounts have been suspended on posting material about the Russian’s efforts to invade Ukraine. Also, a few OSINT accounts in French, Spanish and Brazilian languages also got affected due to the interruption.

videos of Russian Attack on Ukraine Surfacing on Twitter

After the complaints, people got suspicions that there must be a reason behind these determents and account suspensions. Nick Waters, an analyst at OSINT organization, accumulated the facts and compiled a Twitter thread that showed many more accounts had been blocked for either a day or 12 hours. Many people had suspicions that maybe these accounts violated some rules or maybe these account suspensions are also part of the big campaign anticipated to restrict media during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The supporters of Ukraine are worried that this must be again a move by Russia like it had done in 2014 during its capture of Crimea.

After people’s complaints, Twitter took action and a statement came from the Twitter spokesperson stating that

“We’re expeditiously reviewing these actions and have already proactively reinstated access to a number of affected accounts.”

According to the spokesperson, Busby the action is not part of any massive campaign. The action has been taken in error. Twitter is proactively reviewing the narratives on the situation and many violate the Twitter policies. Busby said that many people violated “The Verge to Twitter’s Synthetic and Manipulated Media Policy”. This policy deals with sharing of content which includes misinformation on the Twitter platform. According to this policy, the user cannot post information that has been altered and manipulated in some way. Such posts spread widespread confusion in the public. Hence, such posts are blocked for a few hours and then given access again.

Still, it is unknown how the blocked accounts had breached the company’s this specific policy but the company is taking it as an error.

According to a journalist, Toler, this action has been taken probably on the posts with second-tier information. The aggregator accounts have been blocked who take information from the original sources and then spread the information by retweeting.

In a nutshell, many accounts that had been blocked have been opened now. But Twitter is on the same note that people spreading false information on the forum would be hindered and access to their accounts will be resisted in the future also according to their company’s policy.

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