(Bloomberg) — Twitter Inc. has removed false tweets from the Russian embassy account in London that claimed images from the bombing of a children’s and maternity hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, were fake.
The now-removed tweets claimed the hospital was “used by armed forces and radicals” and that an injured, pregnant woman who had been photographed in the attack was an actor, according to screenshots published by The Guardian.
A Twitter spokesperson said the tweets were taken down because they violated the social media company’s policies on hateful conduct and abusive behavior.
Other official accounts linked to the Kremlin have tweeted false information, including a post from the account of the Russian embassy in South Africa that claimed South Africans had sent a “great number of letters of solidarity” to the embassy and said Russia is fighting “Nazism in Ukraine.” The post is still live on Twitter.
Twitter said it has taken steps to curb the spread of false information on the war in past weeks, such as pausing Tweet recommendations and advertisements in Ukraine and Russia. Twitter has been restricted in Russia in retaliation for blocking Russian state-owned media content on the service across the European Union.
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