Facebook, Twitter Highlight Security Steps for Ukrainian Users

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O) launched a feature so users in Ukraine can lock their social media profiles for security, a company official revealed on Thursday.

Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) posted safety tips in English, Russian and Ukrainian on how users can secure their accounts against hacking, and make sure their tweets are private.

The two platforms are often used by political activists and researchers to disseminate information during times of crisis. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday also raised concerns about the spread of disinformation about the conflict on social media.

Therefore, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of security policy, revealed that with one click, users in Ukraine can lock their profile to prevent others who are not their friends from downloading or sharing their profile pictures, or seeing posts on their timeline.

As the conflict in Ukraine escalated, social media users took to platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter to post videos of evacuation lines, helicopters in the sky and anti-war protests in Russia.

On short-form video app TikTok, the hashtags "Russia" and "Ukraine" had 37.2 billion and 8.5 billion views, respectively.