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DUSSELDORF: Russian President Vladimir Putin has intensified a crackdown on media outlets and individuals who fail to hew to the Kremlin line on the war in Ukraine, blocking Facebook and Twitter and signing into law a bill that criminalizes the intentional spreading of what Moscow deems to be “fake” reports. The moves against the social media giants on Friday follow blocks imposed on the BBC, the US government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and Latvia-based website Meduza. The government's sweeping action against the foreign outlets that publish news in Russian seeks to establish even tighter controls over what information the domestic audience sees about the invasion of Ukraine. The state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said it cut access to Twitter and Facebook in line with a decision by the prosecutor general's office. The watchdog has previously accused Twitter of failing to delete the content banned by Russian authorities and slowed down access to it. The bill, quickly rubber-stamped by both houses of the Kremlin-controlled parliament and signed by Putin, imposes prison sentences of up to 15 years for those spreading information that goes against the Russian government's narrative on the war. In response, multiple…

Amid a crackdown on demonstrators and independent media outlets, the Kremlin blocked access to Facebook and Twitter on Friday. Russian telecommunications regulator, Roskomnadzor, said the decision to block Facebook was made in response to the platform's alleged "discrimination" against Russian media, citing 26 cases since October 2020.Nick Clegg, president of global affairs for Facebook's parent company, Meta, said in a statement on Twitter: "Soon, millions of ordinary Russians will find themselves cut off from reliable information, deprived of their everyday ways of connecting with family and friends and silenced from speaking out. We will continue to do everything we can to restore our services so they remain available to people to safely and securely express themselves and organize for action." Early Friday evening, Meta released another statement announcing advertisers in Russia would be cut off from Facebook: "Despite the Russian government's announcement that they will be blocking Facebook, we are working to keep our services available to the greatest extent possible. However, due to the difficulties of operating in Russia at this time, ads targeting people in Russia will be paused, and advertisers within Russia will no longer be able to create or run ads anywhere in the world, including…

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.A Twitter spokesperson said on Friday that it is still investigating the origins and links between the accounts, and that it banned the accounts for violating its “platform manipulation and spam policy.”The accounts with the most retweets about the hashtag on Wednesday only had a few dozen followers and used stock photos as profile pictures, which led disinformation researchers to question how the tweets went viral.It’s an indication that Russia’s once-feared “firehose of falsehood” has been both neutralized and drowned out in recent weeks, particularly as Western media and social platforms have sprung into action.The swarm of inauthentic accounts was initially discovered by Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor of Middle East studies and digital humanities at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar.“People throw the term bots around a lot, but what we saw here was lots of accounts demonstrating inauthentic activity and astroturfing,” Jones said. “They’re not bots. They’re a lot harder to check than that. Imagine a call center setup. Think of the amount of damage you can…

DUSSELDORF, Germany (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a bill introducing a prison sentence of up to 15 years for those spreading information that goes against the Russian government’s narrative on the war in Ukraine.The bill criminalizing the intentional spreading of what Russia deems to be “fake” reports about the war was quickly rubber-stamped by both houses of the Kremlin-controlled parliament earlier in the day. Background: Russian State Duma passes bill to impose lengthy prison sentences on those reporting news on Ukraine invasion that doesn’t match Putin party line Russian authorities have repeatedly decried reports of Russian military setbacks or civilian deaths in Ukraine as “fake” news. State media outlets refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” rather than a “war” or an “invasion.” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament, said the new measure “will force those who lied and made statements discrediting our armed forces to bear very grave punishment.” “I want everyone to understand, and for society to understand, that we are doing this to protect our soldiers and officers, and to protect the truth,” he added. From the archives: ‘It wasn’t Putin who invaded Ukraine’:…

Podcasts are where everyone seems to want to be right now and it looks like Twitter could be the latest to jump in. Engineer Jane Munchun Wong has been able to uncover a new Podcats app in the Twitter app that appears to be a holding page for something much more interesting. With Apple already big in podcasts and Spotify spending money to catch up, could Twitter be the next to get in on the act. It's currently unknown exactly what Twitter has planned here, however. While there is undoubtedly the potential for Twitter hosting its own podcasts in a way that's similar to Spotify, it could instead be giving people a way to surface their existing podcasts via a new directory — something more akin to what Apple does already. Twitter has not announced anything yet, of course, but it does seem clear that something is in the works. Twitter is working on Podcasts tab pic.twitter.com/64tTd3XPdu— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) March 2, 2022 How either of these approaches will be received by long-time Twitter users remains to be seen. The feature will only be available via the official Twitter app of course, and while the social network did initially…

By Wonderwall.com Editors 2:20pm PST, Mar 3, 2022 Kim Kardashian likes a pro-Pete Davidson tweet after Kanye West's controversial video release As Kanye West continues to make his feelings about Pete Davidson public through his music and on social media, Kim Kardashian gave her boyfriend a subtle show of support on Twitter on March 3. Pete, who Kanye kidnaps and buries alive in the dark new video for his song, "Eazy," was praised by filmmaker James Gunn on Twitter this week in a post that scored a "like" from Kim. "For the record, Pete Davidson is one of the nicest, sweetest guys I know," James wrote on the platform. "A truly generous, tender & funny spirit, he treats everyone around him with respect." Pete had briefly returned to Instagram since he and Kim started dating, but he deactivated his account again amid Kanye's ongoing public attacks. According to a March 3 report from Page Six, he resurfaced on the platform for under an hour on March 2, the same day a judge granted Kim her request to be declared legally single amid her divorce proceedings from Kanye. The SKIMS founder filed for divorce from the rapper in February of last…

After gaining national attention for launching a Twitter bot that tracks the movements of Elon Musk's private jet, University of Central Florida student Jack Sweeney is at it again – this time going after Russian oligarchs.  ELON MUSK SAYS STARLINK IS ACTIVE IN UKRAINE AMID INTERNET DISRUPTIONSSweeney, 19, uses legal websites that track aircraft transponders and his own IT and coding skills to make the bots. Sweeney launched a new account, @RUOligarchJets, on Saturday, which is currently tracking over a dozen jets, including those owned by Russia's wealthiest person, Vladimir Potanin, Chelsea soccer team owner Roman Abramovich and Alexander Abramov, the head of the country's largest steel producer.  In addition, Sweeney launched a separate account called @PutinJet. However, he warned that it may not be accurate, noting "there are a dozen VIP Russian planes, and ADS-B coverage isn't great in Russia." The @RUOligarchJets account has about 154,000 followers and the @PutinJet account has over 29,000 followers as of the time of publication. The accounts do not reveal who actually may be on the flights or other critical information that would be needed by intelligence agencies. "I launched because people had asked me to track them as they knew I had…

ASSOCIATED PRESS Then-U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., left, spoke to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington in March 2014. Senate candidate Vicky Hartzler’s campaign says she has no plans to delete a tweet in which she wrote, “Women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women,” even after Twitter said she won’t be able to tweet, retweet, follow or like posts until she does. ST. LOUIS >> A U.S. Senate candidate for Missouri says she has no plans to delete a transphobic tweet that violated Twitter’s rules against hateful conduct, even after the social media platform said she won’t be able to tweet, retweet, follow or like posts until she does. Twitter suspended Vicky Hartzler‘s personal account on Monday. Hartzler’s tweet, posted in mid-February, said: “Women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women,” and included her TV ad targeting transgender people in sports and particularly University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas. A statement from Hartzler’s campaign called the suspension “shameful, utterly ridiculous, and a horrible abuse of censorship by big tech giants to stifle free speech.” The campaign said Hartzler will not delete the tweet. Hartzler is a congresswoman representing Missouri’s 4th District. She is…

New York Knicks big man Mitchell Robinson just stoked the fire of his alleged discontent with the current role he has been given on his team. The 7-foot center decided to jump in on a random Twitter exchange between Knicks fans about his own future with the franchise and apparently, Robinson had a few things to say. The argument started with a Twitter fan page called KnicksNation claiming that the Knicks should consider trading Robinson if they are unable to secure him to a new deal. According to the tweet, Robinson’s supposed beef with head coach Tom Thibodeau all stems from his desire to get a bigger contract. The 23-year-old big man just couldn’t help but react to the rather unsavory allegations: Everyone knows when everybody gets involved and the ball moving and everyone touching the ball the energy and effort goes to another level let me as you this and be 100% with your answer how would you feel just running up and down the court for 48 or even for 20 minutes? — Mitchell Robinson (@23savage____) March 1, 2022 Based on his statement above, Robinson clearly has an issue with his role for the Knicks. He seems to…

Rohit Sharma is yet to make a statement about the tweets. March 01, 2022 / 05:37 PM IST Rohit Sharma has been facing flak after he managed only five runs off nine balls in the third T20I game of the series against Sri Lanka. "I love coin tosses…especially when they end up in my belly." This tweet went out from skipper Rohit Sharma account at 11 am on Tuesday. While it struck several of his fans as odd, a few other tweets in quick succession made it clear that the Twitter account of the captain of the Indian cricket team was possibly hacked.I love coin tosses…especially when they end up in my belly!— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) March 1, 2022Bzz….! Did you know? Buzzing beehives make for great boxing bags!— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) March 1, 2022Cricket balls are edible…right?— Rohit Sharma (@ImRo45) March 1, 2022While Rohit Sharma -- who is in Mohali, Punjab, for India's first Test of the two-match series with Sri Lanka -- is yet to make a statement, Twitter users had a field day with a meme fest.Here are a few memes:https://t.co/zCTSLbe0XO— AniL (@Ani45L) March 1, 2022Today...,Everyone to rohit sharma... pic.twitter.com/2xjHPfZfyz— Sajal Singhal (@sajal593) March 1, 2022BTS Rohit…