While the Armed Forces of Ukraine are defending the state on the physical fronts of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the war continues in cyberspace. As early as Friday, an international group of hackers, the Anonymous collective, joined Ukraine in fighting against the Russian Federation and declared open war on the Russian government. The first results emerged on Friday afternoon: hackers brought down the website of the Russian Ministry of Defense and released the data on its employees. On Saturday, as a result of hackers’ efforts, Ukrainian music was played on Russian television, and a number of news channels (RT, Channel One) and Russian government websites were down, including the websites of Roskomnadzor, webpages of the President of the Russian Federation, the government, the Federation Council, the State Duma, RosOil (RosNeft), public services platform (the analog of “DIYA”) etc.
The Anonymous collective and Ukrainian disBalancer were organizing the cyberattack. And although these actions are very beneficial on their own (for example, the Anonymous collective assures that they already know about all the Kremlin’s criminal plans in Ukraine), in some ways, it also affects the Russian audience. In particular, there is an intensified censorship of the Russian media outlets now, as well as steps were taken towards the long-announced “independent” Internet, restricting or banning the work of foreign social media networks.
Russia against the truth: a review of occupier’s censorship
First of all, we should speak here about the censorship of the media environment. When Russia’s full-scale military aggression against Ukraine began on Thursday, Moscow banned the Russian media from informing the Russian population about the war against Ukraine. Thus, instead of clearly naming the war as it is, the occupiers in their own information space spread the definition of a “special military operation”. It seems that the special operation is “designed to bring peace to Ukraine,” using bullets and GRAD multiple rocket launchers. At the same time, Russian media outlets that use the correct definition of war faced huge penalties from the Russian regulator, Roskomnadzor.
In addition, on Saturday the Roskomnadzor had issued an ultimatum to a number of media outlets to remove publications about the war in Ukraine, as the materials “contained inaccurate information” because they “misspelled the special military operation with an attack, invasion or declaration of war.” The list includes “Echo of Moscow”, “Foreign Media”, “Mediazone”, “New Times”, “Rain”, “Free Press”, “Free Press”, “Krym.Realii”, “Novaya Gazeta”, “Journalist” and “Lenizdat”). Roskomnadzor promised to block these resources in Russia.
Another example of censorship in Russia is that today the Russian leadership forbids the media to publish data on the losses of the Russian army, as well as the number of deaths (and actually the Russian soldiers’ presence in Ukraine). For example, on Saturday, the TASS agency published the following data on its official website, but quickly removed it.
Particular attention is also paid to the way the Russian government is fighting against independent information platforms, which provide truthful information about the Russian-Ukrainian war on the Internet. For example, on Saturday afternoon Twitter, Facebook and Instagram activities were significantly slowed down in the Russian Federation, which prevents users from receiving objective news about what is happening in Ukraine.
How is the cyber world fighting against Russian aggression?
First, we should thank the ‘Meta’ company, which is very much supportive. So, on Saturday evening, Instagram began labeling Russia-backed propaganda resources with a ‘Russian-led media’ tag (RIA Novosti, Vecherny Urgant, TASS and Russia Today).
Another important victory was Meta’s refusal to make concessions to the Russian government who wanted them to stop the fact-checking and labeling of disinformation spread by Russian media in the Russian segment of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and other Meta products. Instead, the company only intensified fact-checking efforts in Russian and Ukrainian. In addition, Russian state media outlets can not advertise themselves and monetize their messages around the world. This was announced by Kateryna Kruk, regional representative of Facebook:
Meta also organized its own information center with Russian and Ukrainian-speaking experts. The company has also strengthened security for Ukrainian users: now users from Ukraine can block their profiles in one click (so that third-party users will not be able to enlarge and upload their avatars, as well as see posts and other photos in their profiles). Also, all Ukrainian users now have hidden lists of “friends” so that people are not persecuted in the event of a temporary occupation.
In addition, on Saturday afternoon, the Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhailo Fedorov said that Twitter had banned the registration of accounts in the Russian Federation (which, accordingly, reduced the ability of Russia to create bot accounts in the social platform).
A bit later the Instagram blocked the account of Ramzan Kadyrov’s assistant with almost 5 million followers, where Kadyrov addressed his supporters after blocking his own account (the reason for blocking was the publication of a video of the Chechen military sent to Ukraine). About 7,000 bots used by Russians to propagate the war in Ukraine were also blocked on Facebook. The Security Service of Ukraine revealed the “bot farm”.
YouTube also joined the cyber sanctions: in the evening, the social network stopped monetizing the Russian channel Russia Today, and Google reported hundreds of channels and thousands of videos on YouTube that violated the standards.
In addition, Twitch and Onlyfans have stopped paying funds to Russian users who have opened accounts at the banks under sanctions.
Viber approached sanctions more creatively: the company’s founder sent almost $ 9 million to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
How can I help Ukraine in cyberspace?
If you work in IT, there are many possibilities for you to help. In particular, the Ukrainian cyber police recently announced that they are creating a Ukrainian IT-army and have created a Telegram bot, which will provide relevant tasks to anyone who address.
If you have a lot of free time and want to fight Russian disinformation about the war (along with stopping deliberate dissemination of information about the deployment or movement of the Armed Forces of Ukraine), cyberpolice offers the following tools for you: through this Telegram chatbot you can block Telegram channels, Youtube channels, Facebook pages and groups, as well as Instagram pages. You can also report about fake news through this Telegram bot.
In addition, you can track the users of social media networks who spread disinformation (like bots) or information about the Armed Forces, report such posts to the administration of Facebook / Instagram / Telegram (through the social networks tools), and inform the Ukrainian police about those cases.
Also, through a special chatbot of the Ukrainian army you can report on the marks left by the occupiers on the territory of Ukraine. In this chatbot, you can inform the Armed Forces and the Territorial Defense groups about the movement of Russian troops or once you notice an enemy’s so-called sabotage and intelligence units. And also you can use this list and send complaints to Instagram and ask to block Russian opinion leaders and the media.
At the same time, it is important to use all available information platforms to convey truthful information about Russia’s war with Ukraine, despite all censorship.