Brussels, Europe Brief News – Social media giant Reddit has restricted all links coming in from Russian domain names. It also includes the state-controlled media sites RT and Sputnik.
Several communities on Reddit already restricted links from Russian state media and their foreign language associates but the new policy has completely shut down everything for Russian news sources.
Reddit said in a blog post “We have made such restrictions universal across the site in all geographies. Furthermore, we will continue not to accept advertisements that target Russia or originate from any Russia based entity”.
Before Reddit, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms announced that they are blocking RT, Sputnik and other official Russian news sources to show their support for the people of Ukraine.
As per Experts, the Reddit ban on Russian news sources is one of the most impactful forms of Deplatforming which can hurt Russia big time on its digital presence.
Reddit Joins Other Digital platforms
The platforms like Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft have paused ads, removed content and limited the ability to search content from Russian based services.
Reddit has also been rejecting ads that target Russia or come from any Russian-based business, government or private entity.
Reddit goes far away with its restrictions on Russian controlled media as now even moderators would not be able to manually approve a link from a Russian source.
Reddit said in a blog post “ The conflict in Ukraine has been shocking and upsetting. Recognizing this is first and foremost a human tragedy, we have been working to ensure that those in our community who are impacted by these events have the support they need in these difficult times”.
The Social media platform also announced that it is already working to deal with ongoing issues with the moderation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We are putting in restrictions to reduce the risk of misinformation spreading through sites to the world.
On the other hand, Russian officials have started to hit back at all broadcasters, websites and social media platforms that block content from RT and Sputnik.
Russia’s Lower House also passed a bill to impose harsh jail terms and fines on newspapers and journalists that publish fake news.
Earlier on Friday, Facebook’s parent company Meta announced that RT and Sputnik will be restricted on Facebook and Instagram in UK.
