‘Facebook Tries to Combat Russian Disinformation in Ukraine’ – FB Public Policy Manager

Ukrainian content on Facebook is moderated by Ukrainian employees only, Kateryna Kruk, the company's public policy manager told Kyiv Post.

“We are working hard to combat disinformation from Russia, which comes from state-controlled media. Since March 2022, we have been reducing the distribution of content from Facebook and Instagram accounts belonging to Russian state-controlled media and making them harder to find on our platforms around the world,” Kruk said.

While Facebook uses artificial intelligence technology, it also uses human reviewers and considers user complaints to remove content. These teams include native speakers who understand the local context, she said.

“We also get feedback from our network of local and international partners on new risks, which allows us to respond quickly,” Kruk said.

Kruk said that it often takes local people to understand the specific meaning of a word or the political climate in which a post is circulating.

But Facebook still struggles with content moderation challenges, particularly since the start of its Russian embargo, Kruk said.

Meta, as Facebook Inc. is now called, has no moderators, no office, no employees or contractors in Russia, Kruk said.

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Kateryna Kruk, Facebook's Ukraine public policy manager

“In total, we have about 40,000 people working on safety and security issues at Meta, of which about 15,000 are content moderators. These teams are located all over the world in all major time zones and can review content in more than 70 languages, including Ukrainian,” Kruk added.

Due to the difficulties of operating in Russia, advertising that targets people in Russia is currently suspended, and advertisers in Russia can no longer create or display ads anywhere in the world, including Russia.

Kruk said that Meta realizes that it doesn’t always do enough to explain “shadow banning” or why some content gets flagged or removed when it does.

“That’s why we launched Account Status, where people can understand what is happening to their account and what steps they can take to resolve it,” she said.