Sacha Baron Cohen has called out social media platforms for not blocking Russia’s state TV network amid the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a post on Twitter, the actor criticised the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube – Mark Zuckerbeg, Parag Agrawal, Sundar Pichai and Susan Wojcick respectively – and urged them to remove the network RT from their platforms.
“Putin just bombed a children’s hospital, but @Facebook, @Instagram, @Twitter & @YouTube are still showing Russia’s state-run RT,” Cohen wrote.
“Why are you profiting off Putin’s propaganda?! Remove Russia RT from your platforms NOW!”
Hey Mark, @paraga,@sundarpichai, @SusanWojcicki
Putin just bombed a children’s hospital, but @Facebook, @instagram @Twitter & @YouTube are still showing Russia's state-run RT
Why are you profiting off Putin's propaganda?!
Remove Russia RT from your platforms NOW! pic.twitter.com/W0wkWKAZpX
— Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) March 9, 2022
NME has reached out to representatives for all the respective companies.
As posted on the updates blog for Meta – the rebrand of Facebook who also own Instagram – the company states they have restricted access to RT and Sputnik in Ukraine, the UK and across the EU.
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In an update on March 1, the blog reads: “In addition to restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU, we are now globally demoting content from Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts from Russian state-controlled media outlets and making them harder to find across our platforms.
“We have also begun to demote posts that contain links to Russian state-controlled media websites on Facebook. In the days ahead, we will label these links and provide more information to people before they share or click on them to let them know that they lead to Russian state-controlled media websites. We plan on putting similar measures in place on Instagram.”
Cohen previously criticised social media companies for failing to crack down on racist abuse on their platforms, following online attacks against England’s football players.