Ukrainian war, social networks "lock down" user information

Facebook and Twitter are introducing new features and an information kit to allow subscribers not to make their data accessible outside authorized persons. And block access or deactivate accounts 25 Feb 2022 Antonello Salerno

The invasion of the Russian armed forces in Ukraine is a media phenomenon that also indirectly involves various social platforms, with users filming and transmitting images of the evacuations or the dramatic moments of the beginning of the Russian invasion via their smartphones. Among the most used apps are Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter. Just to give an example, on TikTok, the videos that carried the hashtags "Russia" and "Ukraine" have respectively recorded 37.2 billion and 8.5 billion views since the beginning of the conflict. This phenomenon has also brought with it the issue of the safety of users who have posted information on social platforms: data that could be used by military or intelligence apparatuses and put at risk the safety of some users, especially if we consider that even a large number of activists use these communication tools. So in the last few hours both Facebook and Twitter have taken the field to protect their users who operate in the areas affected by the conflict. Facebook did so through a tweet from Nathaniel Gleicher, head of the company's security policies, who announced a new feature that allows users to choose who to share the information contained on their profile with, making it inaccessible to anyone. He is not included in the circle of "friends". Twitter, for its part, has published a series of information aimed at users to explain to them how it is possible to defend against hacker activity, make tweets "private" and even deactivate their accounts.

user information