John Chalmers and Foo Yunchee

BRUSSELS – The Premiers of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia stated that Alphabet (NASDAQ) and its subsidiary YouTube and Facebook (NASDAQ) have to work harder to counter disinformation regarding Russia’s invasion Ukraine.

The four prime ministers criticized the U.S. technology giants in a February 27 joint letter addressed to chief executives of four companies, stating that what they had done thus far was inadequate.

They stated in the letter that “even though the online platforms made significant efforts to respond to the Russian government’s unprecedented attack on truth,”

Russia’s disinformation is not only tolerated over the internet for years, but they also contribute to the illegal war of aggression being waged by the Russian government against Ukraine and all the rest of the world.

The companies were urged to prevent accounts from being used for denying, glorifying, or justifying wars of aggression, war crime, and crimes against humanity.

The tech companies were also asked to close the accounts of Russian, Belarusian and Belarusian state institutions and media outlets. They are also asking for the suspension of personal accounts of leaders of these countries and those associated with them who continue disinformation regarding the Ukraine situation.

These countries urged the companies not to allow Russian state-controlled media to bypass restrictions placed by national regulators.

According to them, online platforms need to adjust search and recommendation algorithms for disinformation in order inform their users and demonetize accounts that are controlled by Russian or Belarusian governments.

Facebook mentioned a tweet on Sunday by Nick Clegg (its vice-president), in which he stated that company was reviewing additional government requests for Russian state media restrictions.

The tweet stated that it will continue to identify and fact-check these outlets, as well as ban ads and demonetize their accounts worldwide.

Twitter and Google did not respond immediately to our requests for comment.