Meta Removes Deepfake Video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

Meta removed a deepfake video from its platforms Wednesday that depicted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ordering his country’s troops to surrender to Russia. Head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher explained in a tweet, “Earlier today, our teams identified and removed a deepfake video claiming to show President Zelensky issuing a statement he never did. It appeared on a reportedly compromised website and then started showing across the internet. We've quickly reviewed and removed this video for violating our policy against misleading manipulated media, and notified our peers at other platforms.” Gleicher also shared a link to Meta’s policy on manipulated media. Meanwhile, Twitter said Wednesday that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, it has removed more than 75,000 accounts for violations of its policy on platform manipulation and spam, and over 50,000 pieces of content have been labeled or removed for running up against its synthetic and manipulated media policy. The social network has been providing Ads for Good grants to humanitarian organizations on the ground in Ukraine, and it said Wednesday that campaigns created through this process have tallied more than 117,463,000 impressions. Curated Twitter Moments related to the war in Ukraine have been viewed over 8.08 billion times, and other ways to stay informed on the platform include: dedicated event pages in 12 languages and more than 67 countries; critical digital safety and security resources in English, Ukrainian and Russian via Twitter’s search and home timeline prompts; and a dedicated Topic and Twitter List featuring reliable news sources. Twitter said it has labeled more than 61,000 unique tweets since Feb. 28 as sharing links to Russian state-affiliated media sites, resulting in approximately a 30% reach decline for content of this sort, as it is not eligible for amplification and, therefore, not recommended in users’ notifications, timelines or other surfaces. The social network began extending that labeling process to state-affiliated media accounts from Belarus, and to one from Ukraine. Finally, in an effort to provide additional context, labels will be rolled out to Ukrainian government accounts starting this week, but their content will not be restricted. Twitter wrote in a blog post, “As we do around major global events, our safety and integrity teams are actively monitoring for potential risks. We recognize that some high-profile accounts—including those of journalists (especially female journalists), activists, agencies and government officials—may be particularly vulnerable. We’re working to mitigate any attempts at targeted account takeover or manipulation and have made account security resources available in English, Ukrainian and Russian. We are also working with our partners around the world, including members of our Trust and Safety Council, to identify and escalate urgent requests for support from journalists, activists and others in need of assistance.”

Ukraine

Meta Removes Deepfake Video of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

Twitter said over 75,000 accounts have been deleted since Russia’s invasion began

David Cohen

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David Cohen