March 2, 2022
Chairs of Foreign Affairs Committees of European Parliaments call on social
media platforms to curb Kremlin misinformation and strengthen European and
Russian information space
We address you amid
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine –
the largest war in Europe since World
War II, a war of aggression against a democratic nation. With Ukraine under siege, we have
seen a
continuation of Russia’s use of both overt and covert means to sow confusion and
fear
about the conflict and promote disinformation narratives that aim to justify and rationalise
Russia’s illegal acts in Ukraine both in the international community and within the Russian
domestic information space.
Domestically, the Russian government has sought to control information about the Ukraine
war and prevent manifestations of anti-war sentiment. Russia-backed media reports falsely
claiming that the Ukrainian government is conducting genocide of civilians ran unchecked and
unchallenged on Twitter and Facebook. Videos from the Russian government
—
including
speeches from Vladimir Putin
—
on YouTube received money from Western advertisers.
Unverified TikTok videos of alleged real-time battles were instead historical footage, including
doctored conflict-zone
images and sounds. Russia’s top five international state-backed
media
outlets have used Facebook and Twitter to share false reports claiming that the Ukrainian
military had committed unprovoked attacks on Russian-allied forces. They also suggested
NATO countries would carry out so-called false flag chemical weapons attacks on Donetsk and
Lugansk
to tarnish Russia’s reputation.
This information warfare has been front and centre in
creating the pretext for this invasion and continues to be a significant piece of the Kremlin
operation to justify its war of aggression and hide the crimes being committed in its course.
With the savagery of the Russian forces growing by the day and Russian airpower raining
destruction down on Ukrainian cities, the Russian government and its state-sponsored outlets
continue to circulate false and misleading claims to support the ongoing invasion. By casting
the Ukrainian government and the country as a whole in the most negative possible light
—
and officially linking
Russia’s official war aims to “de-Nazification” and “demilitarisation”. The
case for the war is built on lies, both about Ukraine’s history and it’s
present. We implore you
to act now and prevent your platforms from being exploited, thus becoming complicit in a
criminal war that has already brought unimaginable suffering, death and destruction.
We call on you to significantly expand efforts to detect Russian falsehoods and prevent your
platforms from being exploited in the conflict.
We urge you to pro-actively suspend or block all accounts engaged in denying, glorifying or
justifying wars of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the official accounts
of Russian and Belarusian government institutions, state-controlled media as well as personal
accounts of these countries’ leadership and their close associates,
follow the decision to