Our thoughts are with everyone affected by the war in Ukraine. We are taking extensive steps across our apps to help ensure the safety of our community and support the people who use our services — both in Ukraine and around the world.
Here are a few of the immediate actions we’ve taken:
Helping to Keep People Safe
We have added several safety features in Ukraine and Russia in response to the situation on the ground.
- Lock Your Profile: This tool allows people to lock their Facebook profile in one step. When someone’s profile is locked, people who aren’t their friends can’t download, enlarge or share their profile photo, nor can they see posts or other photos on someone’s profile, regardless of when they may have posted it. Our teams are working with non-governmental organizations and civil society organizations to help ensure people know these tools are available.
- Friends Lists: We’ve temporarily removed the ability to view and search the friends lists of Facebook accounts in Ukraine and Russia to help protect people from being targeted.
- Instagram Privacy and Security: We’re sending everyone on Instagram in Ukraine and Russia a top-of-feed notification about privacy and account security. For public accounts, we are reminding them to check their settings in case they want to make their accounts private. When someone makes their account private, any new followers will need to be approved, and only their followers will be able to see their posts and stories. For people who already have private accounts, we’re sharing tips on how to keep their account secure through strong passwords and two-factor authentication. We’ve also made encrypted one-to-one chats available on Instagram for all adults in Ukraine and Russia.
- Privacy and Safety in Messenger: We’ve increased the tools available to Messenger users in Ukraine and Russia, such as by quickly rolling out notifications for screenshots of disappearing messages in our end-to-end encrypted chats.
- Secure Messaging on WhatsApp: As always, your personal messages and calls are protected with end-to-end encryption by default so they cannot be intercepted by any government. You can now use “view once” media to send photos or video that vanish after being seen and “disappearing mode” to automatically erase all new chats after 24 hours to protect information in case you lose your phone. We strongly recommend everyone enable two-step verification to protect against hackers that could try to lock you out of your account.
Reducing the Spread of Misinformation
We are taking extensive steps to fight the spread of misinformation on our apps and continuing to consult with outside experts. This includes removing content that violates our policies and expanding our work with third-party fact-checkers in the region to debunk false claims so we can help ensure fewer people see them.
We are globally demoting content from Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts from state-controlled media outlets to make them harder to find across our platforms. We also prohibit ads from Russian state-controlled media and have demonetized their accounts.
To promote reliable access to trustworthy information, Ukraine’s State Emergency Services has launched an information helpline on WhatsApp. The free service will connect users to critical updates, reliable information and details about emergency response procedures. To use the free helpline on WhatsApp, simply save the number +380676785917 in your phone contacts and then text the word почати (begin) in a WhatsApp message to get started.
Learn more about how we are working to fight misinformation.
Supporting Our Community
Throughout this war and humanitarian crisis, we’ve seen people across the world use our tools to make their voices heard and support each other. For example, since February 23, more than $20 million has been raised for nonprofits on Facebook and Instagram in support of humanitarian efforts for Ukraine. We’ve also seen Facebook Groups created to help those in need, including a group of 200,000 Romanian volunteers and donors coordinating transportation and accommodations for refugees. And a group of more than 300,000 in Poland is offering housing, clothing, medication and rides from the border to help those in need.
We are also committing $15 million to support humanitarian efforts in Ukraine and neighboring countries.
We remain vigilant to emerging trends and stand ready to take additional action to meet the demands of this ongoing conflict. Read more about Meta’s ongoing efforts regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.