A Meta official, the parent company of Facebook, stated in posts on Twitter Thursday that the company has established a dedicated operations center to monitor the conflict in Ukraine and has launched a feature allowing users in that country to lock their profiles on Facebook for their security. Twitter released tips on Wednesday on how users can secure their accounts against hacking, ensure the privacy of their tweets, and deactivate their accounts. The company shared safety guidelines in English, Russian, and Ukrainian.
Political activists and researchers frequently use the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter to disseminate information during crises.
Users in Ukraine can lock their profiles with a single click to prevent users who are not their friends from downloading or sharing photos on their profile or following their posts, according to Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of security policy, on Twitter. Also, Twitter shared information on how users can deactivate their accounts.
As the conflict in Ukraine escalated on Thursday, social media users turned to platforms like TikTok, Snapchat, and Twitter to post videos of evacuation routes, helicopters in the sky, and anti-war protests. The hashtag "Russia" garnered 37.2 billion views, while the hashtag "Ukraine" received 8.5 billion views on the TikTok short video app.
