Support for new customers is suspended in Russia as well as updating our guidelines for content

The invasion of Ukraine is devastating. We're devastated and shocked by the immediate impact of it, with thousands of people killed and millions more displaced. We are with Ukraine and condemn the unprovoked attack that is unjustified and unjustified We are also amazed by the incredible determination of our workers based in impacted regions and of the entire population of Ukraine.

We at rely on the power of video to spread the truth in a manner that no other medium can. This power becomes especially important when there is a global crisis, when the risks of propaganda and misinformation become even more dangerous. We have never had the policy of stopping the service of users due to political events. There have been recent developments that were taken -- such as Russia's new 'fake news' law which can punish users as long as 15 years of prison for publishing content -which have rendered it difficult to maintain our service as we have previously.

As a result of the actions taken, we're discontinuing support to new customers from Russia and will announce updated content guidelines that are more specific about what we define as propagandism and misinformation on our platform. Our goal is to ensure that we balance the freedom to express ourselves and our obligation to safeguard our users from material that has the potential to be dangerous or incite harm.

Starting today:

• We are not accepting any prospective customers who are from Russia and will continue to offer access to existing customers who have abided to and have not violated our community guidelines, and are not affected by international sanctions.
• We're using this as an occasion to further strengthen our content guidelines by explicitly banning false and misleading content (including fake stories, deepfakes, propagandists as well as unproven or discredited conspiracy theories) that pose a grave danger of harm to a person or group or to people in general.
• We do not conduct trade with organizations that are widely sanctioned by governments other than the U.S. This is the case for Russian state-owned media that have been suspended in the EU.

We will continue to stand by our Ukrainian team and users and find ways to support impacted communities, whether providing moving programs or financial assistance to our employees, or match donations from employees to nonprofits who are on the ground by utilising our platform to increase the voice of people in Ukraine, who experience directly the devastating effects of war and also to educate the people who do not receive accurate information about the crisis currently.

We pray and hope for a peaceful resolution soon.