Russia Ukraine War: Instagram hides followers for private accounts in Russia, Ukraine

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Instagram has begun hiding information about people's followers, who they're following, and people who are following each other for private accounts in Russia and Ukraine to reduce the spread of misinformation. This means that people following private accounts based in Ukraine and Russia will no longer be able to see who those accounts are following, or who follows them.

"We're also not showing these accounts in other people's followers or following lists, or in our 'mutual follows' feature," Meta said in a statement late on Tuesday.

The company has notified private accounts in Ukraine and Russia about this change.

Instagram is also highlighting tools like Your Activity and Download Your Information to accounts in Ukraine and Russia.

Last week, Meta started demoting posts containing links to Russian state-controlled media on Facebook.

From Wednesday, Stories that contain a link sticker pointing to a Russian state-controlled media website on Instagram will be placed lower in the Stories tray.

"We'll also label these Stories to let people know that they lead to Russian state-controlled media websites," said the company.

Specifically, the company is downranking posts from the Russian state-controlled media in Feed, and placing them lower in the Stories tray.

"We're also showing people a notice before they reshare content from these accounts in their Stories, letting them know that the content comes from Russian state-controlled media," said Instagram.

"Lastly, we're not recommending posts from Russian state-controlled media accounts in Explore and Reels, and we're making these accounts harder to find in Search," it added.

(With inputs from IANS)

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