>> from the mayorhart -- from the heart of where innovation, money and power combine, this is bloomberg technology with emily chang. emily: i am emily chang in san francisco, coming up in the next hour, putin retaliates. we will bring you the latest developments in the assault on ukraine from the ground, to the white house, to cyberspace.

meta and twitter disrupt a russian disinformation campaign, we will talk with a top official about what more can be done to fight russian propaganda on social media. we will talk about the role of crypto and the ukrainian war with several cryptocurrencies surgeon, but it could also be a tool to circumvent. we will get to all of that in a moment. stocks erasing almost all of their losses, bitcoin rallying as investors weigh the risk of mounting tension on russell. shares of russian companies cratered elsewhere. joining us now is ed ludlow. ed: it's been an incredible day. we are off session lows, the s&p off just one quarter of a percentage point. this is february 28, last day of the month, seconds consecutive monthly loss for u.s. equities.

big part of the story is yields. big drive in the bond market, the u.s. 10 year yield, benchmark up by 14 basis points. clearly investors are taking assessments. semiconductors are a big part of that package. down more than 2%. investors working out exposure there. bitcoin is interesting, it is monday, over the weekend i was not looking at cryptocurrency markets. you see the big jump. the consideration is whichever side you fit on, crypto adoption may become more prevalent in the wake of those financial sanctions. also coming to the terminal, there is a lot of red on the screen, but there are sectors that are winners.

these are the outperformer's. money has been going into the defense stocks. what about nato countries upping defense spending, unprecedentedly so in the wake of what we are seeing? the specific story of russia and sanctions. a lot of it around commodities. we held steady there as sanctions become more encroaching on the energy markets, but the energy index shows how broad-based it is. finally, this u.s. listed etf which tracks russian equities, with the markets closed until further notice, this was an issue of price discoveries. the biggest drop in history. emily: bouts of moving parts there.

the bank of russia is taking desperate measures. what more can the west do? jordan has more. as far as we know, how much farther is the u.s. willing to go when it comes to swift or otherwise? >> right u.s. officials are saying nothing is off the table, but one area they are hesitant to touch is the energy sector, which is the lifeblood of russia's economy. they are saying there will be certain carveouts or exemptions for energy-related trades when they do announce the specifics. that being said, the sanctions package has not convinced ottoman putin to withdraw from ukraine. the question is, if this latest round does not do the trick, how far are they willing to go? emily: talk to us about how the ukraine situation is changing president biden's plan for the

state of the union coming up tomorrow? >> when the white house was conceiving the speech, they were perceiving it as a broad reset on president biden's agenda which has been stalled since late last year, and also on the covid situation. those things are prominent factors in the speech, but there's going to be much more about the situation in ukraine. they're going to try and cast it in a way that makes it part of president biden's effort to promote democracy both in the united emily: there's also a question about how sanctions against russia impacts economies around the world and the u.s. economy which is already hurting from inflation. how is the president thinking about that? >> as i mentioned, the energy sector is a huge factor and this has been a tremendous bugaboo for biden. we have seen a real reluctance

by the u.s. government to go after rush shows oil and gas sector because they fear rising oil prices beyond how far they've already risen. it will be a big test for them in the coming weeks and days to see if russia is not giving any concessions on the ukraine front. are they willing to banned exports of russian oil for example? do something we will be watching in the next few weeks. emily: our white house reporter jordan fabian, thank you for that update.coming up , russian disinformation disrupted on social media. we speak with meta-'s head of security on propaganda. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: the war in ukraine and the moments leading up to it have been muddied by disinformation online with russian actors pushing state narratives via forms like facebook, tiktok, twitter and more. joining us to break down the role of social media in this ongoing war, sarah frier. thank you for joining us. talk to us about how this fight against russian disinformation is different than what we've seen in years past? for example, disinformation surrounding the u.s. elections? reporter: i think it's different because in this case, you have a very clear instance of a state actor with a goal. goal is known. you can look for those specific topics across social media.

we have seen twitter, we have seen facebook, twitter and labeling russian state media, facebook removing it from circulation in the eu. youtube has restricted any sort of advertising on that content in certain places. i think that the site is a little clearer because it is a u.s. based company, u.s.-based companies, and they are getting pressured by governments in the eu and the u.s. though it is a little less murky what they have to do here. emily: talk to us about how widespread this particular campaign is. they said they suspended 40 accounts and 48 hours, but is it better than that customer >> >> if you are referring to the operation meta found on facebook and its graham, this is the

typical thing they have been looking for ever since the 2016 presidential election that involved russian state interference. they have trained the sensors and they are a lot more aware of what to look at. are they touching everything? probably not -- are they catching everything? probably not, but this is indicative of how they are proactively looking for such things now. it's not like these companies are blindsided anymore. disinformation researchers the world over have been looking for this kind of content and lagging it so i think there are a lot more eyeballs, and the more eyeballs to the problem, the easier it is to solve. emily: bloomberg sarah frier, thank you for that update. meantime, meta saying it disrupted a russian information campaign targeting ukraine,

blocking efforts by hacking group attempting to compromise the accounts of prominent ukrainians. i want to get the latest from meta's head of security policy, nathaniel gleicher. talk to us about what you have disrupted so far and what works there is -- what more work there is to do. >> we have identified separate campaigns. one is an influence operation where actors were using social media across different platforms, instagram, twitter, youtube, and russian social media networks to push messages suggesting the ukrainian government is failing or failed to undermine trust in the ukrainian government and boost trust in the russian government. separately, this hacking campaign. it is a group known as ghost writer that operates across eastern europe. they have now begun targeting individuals in ukraine including at least one journalist and prominent military officials and government officials.

they are hacking in an taking over personal emails and devices and using that to take over social media accounts for deceptive narratives. the good news is our teams have found and taken actions on both operations and we have shared information with our nurse in the industry -- partners in the industry and so far, it does not look like they've had much success. that influence operation, they only had about 5000 followers or even less on facebook and instagram when they were removed. emily: to my next point, 40 accounts in 48 hours, how significant is that really given that meta's platforms are massive? is it just scratching the surface in terms of how far these disinformation campaigns are running? >> this is only one piece of the work we are doing in ukraine. i would not want people to think this is the only work that's happening. we have a whole operations center that lets us bring in

investigators and product experts across the country to tackle these challenges. we've rolled out a whole number of new products changes to help keep people safe on the platform. but influence inflations -- operations like this, it is not the size to pay attention to. it is an indication, and the first indication we've seen that there are covert influence operations from russia targeting public debate in ukraine. there's been a lot of speculation that's happening and of course a lot of focus on overt influence from russian state media and other corners, but this is the first time we've seen this evidence. it's a good reminder the threat actors that teams around the world are focused on are targeting this crisis and invasion and its critical we all remain vigilant to take action on these networks when they appear. emily: and look, russian disinformation campaigns are nothing new, as you and i talked about in the past. why did it take and invasion to get this kind of action from meta on ukraine? couldn't you

have done this sooner? >> we have been forced a number of operations in ukraine over the recent years. this network in particular, which has stood up to engage as tensions in ukraine developed, is linked to a network we removed last year in 2020. we know these actors keep trying, but one of the indicators of success is that move last year had about 200 50,000 followers on facebook and instagram. this network when they try to come back had less than 5000. that's the goal. they will keep trying, but over time working with partners across society and improving systems, we can make it harder for them, contained them, and ensure that even if they get on the platforms, they don't reach that many people. emily: your head of policy nick clegg just announced you will be suspending russian state run media rt and sputnik in europe. there are calls for you to do

that globally. when you look at the bigger picture, what more do you think meta and its platforms can do to crack down on this kind of disinformation? >> so we've already taken a number of steps on russian state media. we have removed their ability to run ads and de-monetized them around the world, as nick mentioned, in response to the -- request from the ukrainian government and blocks them from broadcasting into the eu and ukraine. we are taking a range of other steps to de-amplify their ability to share information on our platforms, and also we have third-party fact checkers continuing to review content posted by russian state media and other entities around the world. when they identify something as false or misleading, we labeled that to make sure people can see it, and down drink it so it doesn't appear in people's feeds

and people are less likely to encounter that information. emily: meantime, you have the russian government asking you to take stuff down. how are you handling those requests, looking at the other side of the coin? >> we will be consistent with our policies. the russian government has asked us to remove fact checks from russian state media publications, where the third-party fact checkers have determined they were making statements that were false or misleading. we refused to do that. those fact-checks are still available. third-party fact checkers are still fact checking content from around the world including russian state media. in the meantime, we've identified and labeled a number of additional russian state media entities, so we are continuing to push. in fact, we will be likely identifying and labeling more as time passes. emily: what can you tell us about cooperation between meta and twitter and tiktok and youtube on these efforts? i know that kind of coordination is something that has happened for a few years now. >> coordination across industry is absolutely critical, because

threat actors like the ones we are talking about don't just target one social media platforms. i mentioned the influence operation we took down targeted a number of social media platforms. similarly, the hacking group ghost writer began by compromising personal emails and using that to get you different social media accounts. whenever we find information like this, we share with our partners so they can investigate and take action themselves on violations on their platform, and they share information with us so we can do the same thing. one of the biggest changes from 2016, even 2018, is that today there are determined expert teams at social media platforms around the world in government and civil society working to defend against these types of threats and are sharing information with each other, so we can all counter them as the whole of society response. emily: the meta head of security policy, nathaniel gleicher, thank you so much as always for joining us.

meantime, tiktok users can now upload videos up to 10 minutes long. this after months of testing. tiktok has been expanding video length ever since its creation, going from an initial 15 seconds, to 60 seconds, and most recently three minutes. they say they hope this will unleash even more creative possibilities for creators around the world. longer videos could allow more context, however opens the door for more misinformation and disinformation, especially in the midst of the ongoing crisis in ukraine. coming up, tens of thousands of ukrainians fleeing their war-torn country, now able to access homes on airbnb for free. more on that pledge from the ceo, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: airbnb ceo brian chesky

says the home sharing service will offer a short-term housing for up to 100,000 ukrainian refugees now being forced to flee their country. this is something the country has -- company has done in the past during international conflicts. what do we know about airbnb's efforts this time, and how does it compare to what they've done in the past? reporter: airbnb has stepped up and offered to provide short-term housing to up to 100,000 ukrainian refugees coming from the country. the size and scope of what we are seeing out of ukraine is pretty large, and people are estimating it is only going to get larger as the conflict progresses. in the past, airbnb has helped to step up and provide housing to refugees from afghanistan. they've also stepped up in the past to provide housing to refugees from syria and venezuela. emily: how is this operation

being funded? is it purely thanks to the generosity of airbnb host? reporter: part of it. at the end of the day, people will have to open up their home. they are also getting support from donors for the refugee fund. a lot of the work will have to come from the host themselves. emily: talk about how airbnb.org fits into the broader company efforts in the long time goals? reporter: i think they are continuing to place an emphasis on the social outreach and humanitarian work. i think this speed they have been able to put this together, the crisis has gone on for a few days, it's clearly at the top of their mind whenever something happens that they can help out. emily: we know other companies like uber are pulling employees out of ukraine. they also suspended services in ukraine. what kind of operation does

airbnb have in ukraine and russia, to be fair, and how are they handling this? reporter: in total, there's about 17,000 short-term listings in ukraine. that is data from a market research company. from what i've seen, there is a good deal of market share that airbnb has within that community. i spoke to a few host in a city that connects to the black sea. they said business was going as normal up until the week before the invasion. it sounds like some of those are still in operation. the company said they would continue to support host and guest, but we have not heard anything from them. emily: what about in russia in particular? reporter: in russia,

there are about 90,000 active rental units. i have not checked to see what airbnb has, but it's a lot -- much larger market and larger country than ukraine. emily: bloomberg's michael tobin, we will continue to follow airbnb's efforts here and see how many refugees take them up on this generous offer. thank you for that report. meantime, bloomberg has learned i fit valuations fell. the palatine arrival now valued at below $3 billion after announcing a restructuring. their brands include nordictrack and pro form. coming, star link activated. how elon musk is preventing ukrainians from being cut off from the internet. we will explain, next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: welcome back to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. star link, spacex's space-based internet access, is working in ukraine. the world's richest man promised more hardware is on the way to help ukraine in response to a plea from the country's vice prime minister. joining us with the latest, our ed ludlow. talk to us about what star link is doing in ukraine. reporter: it's interesting, they

moved so quickly. elon musk tweeted that at 2:00 p.m. saturday. in the last couple hours, we had an image from ukraine from the same minister and those star link ground terminals have arrived. we don't know how many are in there, but that is incredibly fast. bear in mind the service was not active in ukraine until -- and was not due to be active until 2023. there were reports that their internet service was being disrupted by a suspected cyber hacker. this goes a long way to help the country of ukraine staying connected. emily: why is it so useful? reporter: it is the simplicity of it. inside each boxes, there's a receiver unit and a dish. you literally stand outside, point the dish in the sky and hope there's a star link satellite overhead. we've already seen tweets from the ground showing good

conductivity. the average broadband in the u.s. gives you 50 megabits a second. it is strong wi-fi you are able to communicate with, and some of the services in that country has been disrupted because of ener's military activity, but also suspected cyber attacks that have impacted other providers. it's simple and quick. we just don't know how many service -- how many receivers they've got and how much service they are able to revive -- provide. emily: how does this compare to what i ukrainian citizen would normally access? reporter: part of the problem with elon musk and star link and spacex is how they communicate. all we are going off his tweets and pictures. each star link box costs around $500 and the service is $99 per month. we have no idea how many boxes are provided, who's paying for this, if this is a one-off

publicity stunt or if the team will continue to support ukraine throughout the product -- conflict. all we know is they've done it quickly. in a prior example, star link provided 50 ground sets to tonga after the earthquake and it helped them get back online so it should be helpful in this case as well. emily: we will continue to follow that. thank you. i want to stay on the topic of keeping ukraine connected to the internet and bring in wendy whitmore, a globally recognized cybersecurity leader. great to have you back with us. i would love if you could give us a state of play, what is happening in cyberspace at this stage of war in terms of cyberattacks on ukraine and russian targets? >> great to see you again today despite the circumstances. we are closely monitoring activity occurring in ukraine as well as abroad. in some cases, what we are

seeing is what we would expect. activity targeted at critical infrastructure and government websites within the ukraine. we are seeing malware and basements to conduct destructive attacks. we are anticipating attacks in a broader sphere potentially toward europe and the u.s., focused on financial services as well as critical infrastructure. emily: what increasing chatter are you hearing about in terms of cyberattacks on the united states, whether businesses or other entities? >> i think i will comment about destructive malware attacks, an area we are focused on. i think the cyber world and many others are prepared for those attacks because they are not unprecedented. financial services, critical infrastructure, energy, water,

power supply, those are all areas we would anticipate that as a tax escalate, we will continue to see those attacks targeted towards those entities with the intent of taking services off-line, causing disruption potentially in retaliation for sanctions. emily: give us your take on the threat level. where is it highest? what kind of businesses are at risk? >> potentially hospitals. we are seeing that within the ukraine itself and we have that concern we may see that escalate as we move forward. many of us are familiar with the attacks that occurred in ukraine years ago. while i'm not convinced we will see an exact duplication, i think any businesses or international organizations with ties to ukraine needs to be prepared to be segmenting the

network, being identifying this activity in advance and being prepared to detect and respond quickly to those types of attacks we might see moving forward. emily: one of the world's most successful ransomware groups was targeted for aligning itself with russia. do you think we will see more of this? >> i think the space is incredibly dynamic. from that perspective, certainly the attacks that occurred, any time there's a significant leak of data, we will make sure there's information that can be learned from it and we can better secure defenses moving forward based on the information learned from the leak. emily: it's no secret russia is a stronghold for hackers and state-sponsored attacks. how can that hub stand up to

attacks from around the world? >> i think that's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. we have seen attackers leverage information against one another and a lot of organizations unified based on this invasion. one of the things i'm heartened by actually is i've never seen the cybersecurity community come together more from the perspective of sharing threat intelligence, we have rival organizations sharing information rapidly and a lot of information shared between the private and public sectors. i have never seen it at this speed which we are seeing it. i'm cautiously optimistic that will help. emily: what do you think the next stage is? how do you see cyber warriors, whether from ukraine, around the world, or inside russia itself, upping the ante? >> i think you will see a lot of

organizations banding together to share that. our teams are working 24/7 around the clock to make sure we are understanding what's going on on the ground. i think as workers on the ground work out, many would have anticipated cyber would be the primary domain used already. we are not being that much yet. i anticipate we will see that more moving forward depending on how the ground war plays out. emily: wendy whitmore, senior vice president of palo alto networks. thank you for your perspective. coming up, the role of crypto in the ukraine. we will be joined by john woo to talk about the responsibility of platforms, the power of crypto for good or bad, and much more. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: time now for our crypto report. bitcoin spiking as sanctions on russia go into effect, rebounding, jumping as much as 12% following growing speculation it could be used as another means of payment to esther sanctions against russia -- after sanctions against russia. joining us is ava labs president john wu along with sonali basak. bitcoin spiking now. talk to us about what you see driving these moves based on what's happening in ukraine and russia? >> ironically, i think bitcoin

has rallied on the false-negative -- false narrative that crypto is a different avenue for russians to move around. that's absolutely false and incorrect. people like to hold onto this old narrative that bitcoin is a black box and censorship resistance. people forget crypto is transparent. it is not a black box. it's actually like an open box where everyone can look inside, see the transactions, and be able to decipher if there are abnormal movements around. i think there has been speculation that caused bitcoin to go up recently. the reality is it's not a good way. emily: are you saying bitcoin should not be rallying to this extent? >> to the extent it is rallying, the good reason is because crypto has been able, with speed

and efficiency, been able to raise over $20 million for ukrainian families that need it. it does highlight the technology in a different sense. it is speedy and scalable, also fast and can be done for a lot of good causes. emily: that said, you've got crypto exchanges under pressure from the public to cut off russian clients. the ceo of crack and said they can't do that unless there's a legal requirement to do so. why shouldn't we imagine russian billionaires could use cryptocurrency to circumvent sanctions on russia? >> i think jesse has a good point here. if i link it up to your previous story onstar link with elon musk. you are sending messages over the internet, so let's cut off messages for everyone in the russian zone. it's impossible to cut off a

whole country and know who is a good or not a good actor. from other exchanges' perspectives, it would not be right to cut people off like that, especially when there's good coming out of it with $20 million raised for charitable causes in ukraine. emily: there are kind of two issues to think about here -- reporter: there are kind of two issues to think about here when you think about what's happening in the world and crypto. one is about wealthy russian individuals looking to evade sanctions, and another issue entirely which is folks who live in ukraine or people who live in russia, ordinary people who want to move their money into crypto because they are worried about being able to be working with banks or being able to transact in rubles. how much of a reality is that, and do you see people who are in this scenario moving more to crypto because they need to? >> yes. a lot of the activity i suspect

recently in the last couple days has been retail driven. there have been third-party analytical firms that have done analysis on this. crypto to ruble, that exchange, i think about 30 billion has been moved in the last couple days. that is most likely from retail. it is not the size of a russian oligarch or sovereign doing it. if you look at the data, it suggests it is retail people doing a flight to safety because the russian ruble is down 40%. historically, the option of crypto currencies in emerging markets where there's currency that's not doing well, until 2020, there was more adoption in latin america and middle eastern markets because of the worry of inflation. in this case, it is the same.

individuals worrying about local currency devalued. reporter: there's been so much talk about swift and banning russians from swift. how is the crypto community viewing this? i wonder if there's a chance for crypto companies to join to the swift network instead? >> i think on the first point, most people in the crypto community sympathize with the unfortunate citizens of the ukraine. in order to cut off the way to exchange payments for oil and gas from russia is, i would be surprised if any crypto people view that sanction as too harsh. the second thing is crypto is a very decentralized concept in the abstract. it is hard for any one firm or

protocol to just regulate like that. the beauty of it, it is decentralized. it's transparent, but decentralized so that anyone can get access to it. emily: at this point, we have not seen any sanctions impacting the movement of cryptocurrency, but given this increased attention, is that something you are expecting? any additional regulations or sanctions that could impact the movement of digital assets? >> if there were, you would really be hurting individuals in ukraine and individuals in russia. you will not be hurting the sovereign state, the treasury of russia which i think because $600 billion worth of dollars as well as close to that amount in gold. i would worry about gold more than crypto. you really would be cutting the individuals off.

emily: interesting point. john wu of ava labs, thank you for bringing that additional context along with bloomberg's sonali basak. the pressure keeps mounting on silicon valley to use its power to punish russia for invading ukraine. what they are doing, and is it working? that's next. this is bloomberg. ♪

emily: a story we continue to watch, uber is speeding up the sale of its stake in a taxi joint venture with a russian internet company. they will also remove uber executives from the board. uber doesn't hold any shares of the publicly traded entity but does have a 29% stake in the venture valued around $800 million at the end of 2021. uber now trying to distance

itself from that sale. the pressure on tech companies to use their outsized influence to react to russia's invasion of ukraine continue to mount. tech companies being forced to take a stand. for more on this, i'm joined by ashlee vance and of course the host of "hello world." you spent time in ukraine's third-largest city which is also its tech hub. what is significant in the context of the war happening and what do we need to know about it? >> yes. i went there a couple years ago. it's a fascinating place. people might not know, but during the heyday of the soviet union, it was the major sier and manufacturing hub of the soviet union's icbms, and their most sophisticated rocket engines for space missions.

it has this multi-decade history of just incredible engineers and scientists that live there, some of the best schools in ukraine. it's a fascinating place and the heart of ukraine's engineering prowess. emily: you suggested this city could become a target given the steps of engineering and science talent. i know you've been calling some of your sources. what is happening there? is it a target? >> the first day of the attack, i immediately looked to see what is going on. there's a factory where all the icbms and rocket come out of. there was a question, with the russians try to blow it up? would they try to take it over? my friends early on, there was a huge explosion that took place on the outskirts of the city. all the reports i've seen so

far, it seems to be that the factory is safe. the people there are under a lot of pressure. i have friends that were in public relations who are now making molotov cocktails and taking a guns and nobody is clear on what the russians want with these assets. emily: we've heard about a number of companies pulling employees out of ukraine. meantime, we are also seeing pressure for companies to cut ties with russia. we were talking about crypto exchanges being asks -- asked to cut themselves off from russian clients. netflix came out today and said, we are still going to serve russia. what do you make of the choices these global companies are facing about how to use their influence to make it hurt? >> that's the thing, because

russia along with the u.s. and china are the only places that have its own internet where you have all the services you can imagine in the russian language. there's some question of if we kick off these u.s. and russian services, there russian replacements. on the whole, u.s. and european companies have had to make compromises for many years to operate in russia. obviously the state of affairs now puts into question if they are willing to continue making those compromises. for the last month, russia has been leaning on tech companies to make a new set of compromises around having people in russia behind these services with some of their data. if ever there was a moment for these companies to pick sides and stop making compromises, it would seem like this is it. emily: if anything, we have seen

the strength of the ukrainian people and individuals on the ground rallying. you mentioned friends making molotov cocktails to stand up to this invasion. how do you think this deep bench of engineering and scientific talent and companies being built for many years now could help the effort? >> well, it is sad. i cover aerospace a lot. there are a number of aerospace startups and their engineers have been pulled out of the country already to places like bulgaria and surrounding companies -- countries for safety. thirdly, there is a sense that russians are obviously very good at computer science and hacking and so are the ukrainians as well. i'm sure they can lean on that talent. on the whole, it's a little sad to see what's happening to the tech scene because of this. emily: certainly something we

will continue watching. thank you for bringing us that part of the story, bloomberg's ashlee vance. that does it for this edition of "bloomberg technology." tune in tomorrow. we will sit down with the zoom cfo off the company's latest earnings reports and talk about the latest on the or and much more. is bloomberg. ♪ -- this is bloomberg. ♪

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>> we are counting down to asia's major market open. >> our top stories this hour, asian stocks set for a cautious start as fighting continues in ukraine. investors turning to traditional havens. markets in chaos over russia with key sales frozen, raw