According to Yoel Roth, responsible for platform integrity at Twitter, the reason for this step is expert warnings about the country's role in the Ukraine war. Since Belarus is a Russia ally, there are doubts about the credibility of information from state-controlled media. As was previously the case with Russian state-controlled media, the move is intended to keep the visibility of unreliable content low.

Effective intervention

Kremlin-controlled media do not speak of war in connection with Ukraine and also interpret the events in this “non-war” very idiosyncratically. That's why Twitter started marking tweets with links to content from state-affiliated Russian media at the end of February.

This is now also happening with tweets about state-affiliated Belarusian media, whose objectivity experts are also questioning. The local president, Alexander Lukashenko, is considered a close ally of Vladimir Putin, and the advance of Russian troops towards Kiev apparently took place from Belarus.

Twitter is now reducing the visibility of marked tweets with Belarusian media content and is showing users a warning message before they share them. This is intended to help limit the spread of questionable information about the Ukraine war. The example of Russian state-affiliated media shows that this apparently works.

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“Early data suggests our interventions are working here: We saw a 30 percent decrease in impressions for tweets flagged under this expanded policy,” Roth explains in a tweet.

Source: press release

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1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )