The Lithuanian Heraldry Commission has urged government institutions to stop using Ukrainian symbols on Facebook and other social media accounts, saying it creates unintended meanings.
The Commission sent a letter, seen by BNS, to the parliament, Seimas, and the prime minister’s office last week.
“While it feels great respect for the Ukrainian people fighting for freedom, the Commission cannot take a positive view of the replacement of the symbols of official Lithuanian institutions with Ukrainian symbols or their not always proper combinations,” it said.
According to the Heraldry Commission, while the desire to give moral support to Ukraine and its citizens is understandable, replacing Lithuanian state symbols with those of Ukraine “can only be a short-term, occasional phenomenon”.
“Superimposing the Lithuanian coat of arms on Ukrainian symbols can also be seen as disrespectful to the Ukrainian symbols and, in the sense of heraldry, it implies certain unwanted claims,” it said.
For these reasons, the Commission has encouraged the use of “official Lithuanian state symbols or institutional logos” on Facebook accounts.
The Heraldry Commission says it has received complaints from citizens about “possibly inappropriate uses of Lithuanian and Ukrainian symbols” and has therefore analysed the accounts and made the above recommendation.
Defence Minister Arvydas Anušauskas has commented that the Heraldry Commission has no business controlling social media accounts of state institutions.
“I can say that the Heraldry Commission has a very clearly defined job. Controlling social media and accounts is neither its job, nor its business,” the minister told BNS ahead of a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, some Lithuanian institutions, including the Seimas, have changed their logos on social media accounts to include the colours of the Ukrainian flag.
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