TWEAKS AND UPDATES

The Verge: Another US internet backbone provider is shutting down services in Russia. “Lumen, a US firm that provides essential internet services, says it’s pulling out of Russia in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. It’s the second major company of its kind to do so in less than a week, following a similar announcement from rival Cogent last Friday, and is the latest example of a ‘digital Iron Curtain’ growing between Russia and the West.”

Washington Post: A new iron curtain descends on Russia amid its invasion of Ukraine. “Russia’s cultural collaboration with the West is also being cut off. Cultural elites from Moscow and St. Petersburg in many cases have fled abroad. Moscow’s Garage Museum stopped work on its exhibitions due to the war in Ukraine. The artistic director of the V-A-C Foundation, which oversees Moscow’s new GES-2 arts center, resigned, as did the deputy director of the Pushkin Museum.”

USEFUL STUFF

Bellingcat: How to Archive Telegram Content to Document Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine. “Archiving content from the ground ensures it can still be used by researchers if a user deletes a post, if a channel is removed, or if an entire platform becomes inaccessible. For any type of internet content, links stop working over time, a phenomenon known as ‘link rot.’ Archiving content can preserve it for years.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

The Art Newspaper: Unesco ‘gravely concerned’ about damage to Ukrainian cultural heritage. “The UN cultural organisation said it is working to ‘mark as quickly as possible key historic monuments and sites across Ukraine with the distinctive emblem of the 1954 Hague Convention, an internationally recognised signal for the protection of cultural heritage in the event of armed conflict.’ Unesco said it is also seeking to organise a meeting with museum directors across the country to coordinate the safeguarding of museum collections and cultural property.”

ProPublica: In the Ukraine Conflict, Fake Fact-Checks Are Being Used to Spread Disinformation. “Researchers at Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub and ProPublica identified more than a dozen videos that purport to debunk apparently nonexistent Ukrainian fakes. The videos have racked up more than 1 million views across pro-Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram, and have garnered thousands of likes and retweets on Twitter. A screenshot from one of the fake debunking videos was broadcast on Russian state TV, while another was spread by an official Russian government Twitter account.”

NBC News: Twitter bans over 100 accounts that pushed #IStandWithPutin. “Twitter has banned more than 100 accounts that pushed the pro-Russian hashtag #IStandWithPutin for participating in ‘coordinated inauthentic behavior,’ days after the hashtag trended on Twitter amid the invasion in Ukraine.”

Grid: YouTube is spreading Putin’s ‘morally repugnant’ Ukraine propaganda. “Since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, YouTube and other platforms have moved aggressively to block Russian state propaganda in English and other languages from reaching Western audiences. But the video streaming giant, which enjoys a massive audience inside Russia, continues to allow the Kremlin to use its platform to push misleading Russian-language propaganda about Ukraine, including claims of Nazism against the Ukrainian government that experts call ‘morally repugnant.'”

Axios: China’s state media buys Meta ads pushing Russia’s line on war. “Ads from Chinese state broadcaster CGTN are running on Meta-owned Facebook, targeting global users with pro-Russian talking points about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Driving the news: Meta said last week it would ban ads from Russian state media and stop recommending content from such outlets. But that hasn’t stopped countries close to Moscow, like China, from using their state channels to buy ads pushing a pro-Russian line.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

Euromaidan Press: International cyberoffensive gives Russia “a sip of its own bitter medicine”. “An international cyber offensive on Russia is gaining steam as the collective Anonymous takes down Russian and Belarusian state websites and services. As well, the Ukrainian government has launched an ‘IT Army of Ukraine’ in what is the first time that a state has openly called for citizens and volunteers to cyberattack another state. At the same time, Russia’s cyberattacks on Ukraine after the full-scale invasion are surprisingly meager.”

Associated Press: Ukraine digital army brews cyberattacks, intel and infowar. “Formed in a fury to counter Russia’s blitzkrieg attack, Ukraine’s hundreds-strong volunteer ‘hacker’ corps is much more than a paramilitary cyberattack force in Europe’s first major war of the internet age. It is crucial to information combat and to crowdsourcing intelligence.”

Bleeping Computer: US Treasury: Russia may bypass sanctions using ransomware payments. “The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) warned U.S. financial institutions this week to keep an eye out for attempts to evade sanctions and US-imposed restrictions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

Vox Recode: It took a war for Big Tech to take a side. “The internet is global. But tech companies do business in individual countries. So tech companies have to obey those countries’ rules, even if they’re onerous or worse. That’s the rubric that Big Tech companies — almost all of which are based in the United States — have used for years, even when it’s been uncomfortable for the companies, their employees, or their customers. Now that’s over: Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Big Tech has finally taken a side. It’s a move that has real-world consequences today but may be even more meaningful down the line.”

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