(NewsNation Now) — Meta Platforms, Inc., Facebook’s parent company, is banning Russian state media from running ads or earning revenue on its platform from anywhere in the world.
In an announcement on Twitter Friday night, Facebook’s head of security policy said the company will also continue to apply labels on Russian state media.
“These changes have already begun rolling out and will continue into the weekend,” Nathaniel Gleicher posted. “We are closely monitoring the situation in Ukraine and will keep sharing steps we’re taking to protect people on our platform.”
Gleicher had previously said that Facebook’s establishing a Special Operations Center to monitor the situation in Ukraine in real-time. Meta also launched a new feature in the country allowing people to lock down their profile in one click, by quickly applying existing privacy settings and new features.
When a Ukrainian citizen’s profile is locked with this feature, people who aren’t their friends can’t download or share their profile photos or see who posts on their timeline.
The ability to do this was previously made available to others around the world in precarious situations, such as Afghanistan, Gleicher said.
Meta made these moves amid devastation in Ukraine as Russian troops continue pressing toward the country’s capital, Kyiv. A night of explosions and street fighting Friday sent Kyiv residents seeking shelter underground.
Ukraine’s health minister reported Saturday that 198 people have been killed and more than 1,000 others have been wounded since the Russian offensive started before dawn Thursday, with massive air and missile strikes and troops forging into Ukraine from the north, east and south.