X labels Bellingcat’s investigation into Russian hospital attack in Kyiv as “potentially spam or unsafe”

A Bellingcat investigation into the Russian missile attack on a Kyiv children’s hospital was flagged as “potential spam or unsafe” on X after its initial publication on July 9.

The Netherlands-based open-source investment medium is perhaps best known for helping to identify the Russian officers and their Ukrainian proxies responsible for shooting down Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Donetsk Oblast in 2014. The Hague District Court convicted the defendants in the MH17 case in November 2022.

Bellingcat’s July 9 investigation confirmed, using open-source materials and experts, that a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile had hit the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital., The largest children’s medical center in Ukraine.

This claim was supported by other sources, including the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMUN) said there was a “high Probability” that the hospital was hit directly by a Russian Kh-101 missile.

Russian propagandists and others nevertheless continued to spread false information about the attack, claiming without evidence that the hospital had been hit by a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile.

Bellingcat’s investigation was published on the company’s website and shared on X. However, opening the article from X displays a warning message that is still visible at 4:48 p.m. local time.

“Could you clarify why this link to an article about a missile hitting a children’s hospital in Kyiv was flagged by X as potentially unsafe?” Bellingcat wrote on July 10, tagging X’s support account.

“Other Bellingcat links, including coverage of attacks in other regions, were not subjected to the same scrutiny.”

Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins wrote the day before that it was “notable that this article about the Russian bombing of a children’s hospital is the only Bellingcat link showing the warning.”

Following billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly Twitter) in 2022, the social media company faced criticism for the declining quality of its website, increasing levels of disinformation, and lack of effective moderation of the content shared there.

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