If you need to change your platform's rules for literally every major event (elections, Covid, this war) there is something profoundly wrong both with your rules and your platform.
There is tremendous value in having actual principles. So many people either forgotten it or never understood that to begin with.
On the contrary, I think this says less about FB, but more so reflects a hypocrisy in "western principles" that many are probably not self-aware of.
Let's assume for a second, that FB do not relax their rules for this conflict. Then they would have to ban a whole sleuth of Ukrainian accounts, including many government accounts such as Ministry of Defense, and probably even Zelensky. You don't have to stretch your imagination to see what the headlines would look like in that case -- "Facebook bans Ukrainian resistance against Russian aggression" etc. In a sense, FB was a facing a catch-22 situation, where it's just lose-lose for them, and they had to make a call to swallow the "less poisonous" pill.
Contrast this situation with American war efforts in the middle east and Afghanistan over the past 20 years, where they faced no such conundrum.
Reminds me of my favorite internet essay of all time, no longer available except on wayback machine[1]
> ...the US criminal justice system is overwhelmingly preoccupied with procedure and process, often at the expense of justice. This myopia is the product of a technocratic bureaucracy.
> The contemporary incarnation of the peculiar mindset of Anglo-American jurisprudence leads to the question, “Were the rights of all parties, as enumerated by the law, protected?”, eclipsing the much larger issue: “Is this outcome compatible with justice?”
While these comments are in reference to the legal system, I think they are equally applicable to the mindset pervading the oversight of today's tech world.
Personally I feel at least as unsettled about selective enforcement of rules (allowing some rule-violators to avoid getting caught or go unpunished once found out), or punishments or retaliation outside of rules, as harmful consequences of fully enforcing rules which are difficult to make "just" in all cases. Is there a better solution?
They could relax their rules to allow for calls to military self-defense in the context of a "military operation" that has been condemned by the UN, while still banning "calls for violence" against Russians. The two are nothing like each other! Self-defense, or "standing one's ground" is not the same as initiating violence.
Pardon me, but isn't that exactly what they're doing?
> "As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
"Death to the Russian invaders" is nationalistic propaganda of the sort that Putin likes to point to when he calls Ukrainians "nazis". It's not a sensible call to engage in self-defense. For one thing, it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians, of whom there are plenty in Ukraine (Russian even used to be an official language before the Ukraine government removed it as retaliation against the Crimea referendum) and the Russian military involved in the "operation".
You're desperately looking for a ground to stand on that simply do not exist -- please explain how Ukraine can "self-defend" and "stand their ground" without "death to the Russian invaders"?
> it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians,
> "Death to the Russian invaders"
"Invaders" is the properly distinguishing keyword here. So, that makes your comment conflicted.
That doesn't negate the fact a non-corporal entity is making big decisions for groups of people, while also holding their shareholder's value (another group of people) in mind.
One way to break conflicted or dissonant views is to ask direct questions about the conflicted statements. Where others have done that, you appear to have evaded answering the question.
You don't. Invaders implies armed occupying forces causing harm. "Invaders" is a more clear identifier than "gangster", given some gangsters may only sell drugs, not carry guns or use them to inflict direct harm.
Of course one could argue selling drugs is causing harm, but choice of ingestion of the drug is a distinct and challenging topic in and of its own. Also, the two can't be conflated (well) and the origin of the story was Facebook doing X, where X isn't equal to drugs.
I'm also thinking that enforcement against selling drugs is a governmental view, not a societal view. So, a group representing the larger group thinks "drugs are bad", whereas the larger group doesn't hold that consensus based view. It's the group speaking for the larger group holding that view.
In the case of Facebook's action, Facebook is deciding whether or not the larger group can use certain terminology, or not. Facebook is not deciding whether to address the "occupying forces" themselves, through direct action, like a government would do for the larger group.
Maybe Facebook is like a bunch of Mexican gangsters, though!
"Occupying forces" is equivalent to forces whose objective is to replace the current governmental system with their own rule of law. Given Mexican gangsters aren't replacing the governmental systems in these areas, this remains compatible with the assertion that "death to Mexican gangsters" lacks the proper identifying keywords to be allowed on platforms with rules against hate speech.
Just because some people (a subset of a given group and their consensus on topics) think Mexican gangster are occupying forces, doesn't actually make them occupying forces. It just means those people are incorrect in their assumptions about what is true, or not, as viewed by the governing group, in a given area.
Do we really want to ask that question? We might not like the answer that some Ukrainians may give. Facebook was saying that "calls for violence on Russians" are okay given the context, full stop, then they clumsily backpedaled on the civilians issue and then only for threats they arbitrarily judge as "credible", which tells you how ridiculous the back-pedaling was. This is not going well for them.
In case you are unaware, stand-your-ground is a term that allows for deadly force to repel an attacker instead of mandating retreat if it is an option.
I think most people are okay with that, especially in the west, but I'd say all over the world. But in the west you have strong values of fighting for your freedom, arming yourself, having the right to be armed and to fight for your freedoms and that death is better than surrendering your freedoms.
These are only US traditions, especially about firearms. And if I look at the results, your idealistic and self-confident description seems a bit too positive.
Is a UN resolution the appropriate standard? The General Assembly vote was non-binding, and it didn't specifically call for violence against Russian soldiers. So that seems like a shaky basis for Facebook to set content policies.
To be clear, I support the right of Ukrainians to defend themselves against foreign aggression. I just think these constantly shifting Facebook censorship policies are ridiculous.
Problem is, given the circumstances, any violence against Russia would be a morally valid form of defense. Including whatever might happen within Russia.
Private companies should not get in the business of policing content. Follow the laws of the land and that’s it.
It’s not really a foreign concept. We don’t deny somebody sunlight or air because they do something we don’t like (we as in non government entities - governments do deny people “air”). The world would be a better place if businesses operated as close to a natural resource as possible and left politics to politicians.
It’s dumb luck that sunlight isn’t provided by some corporation. Systems like that are what we should strive for.
Companies at that scale can easily show different posts in different regions. It requires principles to remain a “natural resource” but it’s probably the most moral position to take if you believe your service helps better humanity (whether or not fb does that is a different discussion).
I am going to remove morality from the discussion temporarily, and instead talk about how practical that is.
A post breaks a law in 100 countries, but does not break the law in 20 countries. Should all 100 countries file their own removal process? Should there be an army of reviewers who are knowledgeable about all laws reviewing all posts? What about that confusion that different people from different regions are seeing different timelines for the same user.
The US has Federal Laws, State Laws, and City Laws. All of these are laws of the land. No company can keep up with all local laws.
"Breaking the law" is highly subjective by itself. Take the US for example, we have "Freedom of Speech," but that does not protect all speech. Many of these cases go to court taking years to determine if something was or was not protected. Should meta defer all moderation to the legal court system?
What you are suggesting makes sense in a vacuum, but cannot exist in reality.
Okay, what's the alternative? Only following US law? That's just going to end up with the service being blocked in other countries. Follow the strictest law? The you end up having to cave to blasphemy laws in despotic countries.
Well, not specific to US law… but it’s good for companies to simply only follow the laws of their own home nation. If this creates an unfair situation, then the country’s can work together to come to consensus.
I would love to see the allied governments talk more about trade pacts, and economic issues.
As for getting your service blocked, look at the GDPR for example. People will self censor themselves entirely if you are important enough. Out of mere fear of being sued over cookies, US regional media sites stopped displaying in Europe voluntarily. That’s something tin pot dictators couldn’t do even when they were clear the content of US news sites was illegal to the point of being punishable by death.
This is a terrible idea, and is how the whole ‘flag of convenience’ thing came to exist. Desperate countries will sell their lawmaking to the highest bidder (are you could argue that this already happens with taxation laws).
The idea that a company could do something blatantly illegal in my country because it’s legal someplace else is just crazy. Teslas are made in the US, should they follow US road rules when in left hand driving countries?
That doesn't address the point at all. Russia would be just as happy to prosecute facebook for letting pro-ukrainian propaganda stay up anywhere anyway, and what exactly is facebook meant to show a facebook user in Crimea? Russian propaganda or Ukrainian?
We shouldn't participate in promoting hateful lies used to justify genocide it isn't morally neutral nor is neutrality a virtue.
Such a stance would negate any claim of bettering humanity and represent moral injury to engineers you ask to possess such a hateful species of neutrality.
In the US, the 1st amendment grants private companies the right to police content within their purview. Preventing them from doing so is in itself a violation of the 1st amendment. Thus, in my opinion, the suggestion that private companies should NOT police content, despite their explicit 1st amendment right to do so, is antithetical to the 1st amendment.
In the US, companies get 1st amendment protections as if they were people, but don't get any of the liability due to SEction 230 of the communications decency act.
Giving companies 1st amendment rights was ridiculous, but then giving them protections beyond the 1st amendment that no normal person gets was giving them too much power to control speech in society.
Repealing 230 would force companies to moderate much more heavily so as to avoid liability. So if the goal is to reduce moderation, repealing Section 230 won't solve that. Not giving companies 1st amendment rights is very troubling to me because ultimately a company is just a collection of people with a governance structure. Compelling a jewish coffee shop owner to allow someone to post anti-semitic notices within their business would be an immediate consequence.
I don't see any easy answer here. I'm as uncomfortable with the amount of influence companies like Facebook yield as anyone but most of the "easy" solutions would, in my opinion, make the situation far worse.
Section 230 actually protects two groups, "interactive computer services" (Facebook, Twitter, et al) and users from liability wrt content that they get from others.
The "they can't do it at scale" argument applies to ICS, but why shouldn't users be subject to liability when they echo something?
We live in an approximation of the infinite monkeys with typewriters. It's relatively easy to find someone judgement-proof who has written pretty much anything that you'd like. Folks with huge audiences can use that to be as defamatory as they'd like without risking liability.
So the 1st amendment's wrong. Fix it somehow. Landline telephone companies are obliged by their terms of licence to serve all customers in their coverage area (i.e they can't deny the KKK a landline.) There's precedent for forcing companies to provide a certain service. Just write a law. Find or invent a justification and write a law.
You can't, uh, just write a law that overrides the 1st amendment. It's in the Constitution. Any law that overrides the 1st amendment is unconstitutional by definition.
I figure - at least for the US - that that's the inevitable conclusion. Not necessarily FB, perhaps a govt service that's created along the lines of twitter, simple and straightforward.
The internet is the de-facto public square, there has to be a public forum that's under the control of the public.
All things about how society organizes and regulates itself are politics. There exists no pure, apolitical thing to prize for being beyond politics. Asserting that there will be no moderation of speech beyond the minimum required by law is a political perspective on how things should be conducted, and a pretty strong one.
I don't think you are disagreeing at all: you are merely stating the result of not having principles. Yes: if you take a principled stance, sometimes you make "negative" headlines... but the honest reality here is that Facebook makes tons of negative headlines anyway, so they not only have to bear that cost but they additionally come off as, well, unprincipled.
Euh, you call it war efforts. Military interventions were always related to promoting democracy in countries. Since it was something the population actually wants, the amount of casualties were always low, eg. interventions were there are '0 boots on the ground' are preferred.
That's not what's happening now by Russia, since Russia has no interest in promoting democracy and considers it a threat. Russia has more casualties in a couple of weeks than the combined military interventions over 20 years by the west.
You've clearly constructed an argument for a belief I've held for a while about these deontological ethical positions but never quite had the words to express, so thank you for that. Following the rules consistently is not more important than doing the right thing.
> On the contrary, I think this says less about FB, but more so reflects a hypocrisy in "western principles" that many are probably not self-aware of
There's really no hypocrisy. Western principles are: freedom, liberty, democracy, individual rights and equal opportunity for all above all.
This explains much everything pretty well. War against any country that goes against these principles is okay. War in order to try and bring those principles to others or protect them is okay.
Similarly, social media used in ways that could put those principles at risk, is not okay. Social media that is used in ways that supports and promotes these principles is okay.
There are a few cases where it is hard to tell if social media is used for or against those principles, and these get tricky, but there's still no hypocrisy. The challenge is understanding if it is for or against the principles.
For example, it is hard to know if implying that the US elections were corrupted and that's why Trump lost is for or against those principles. If the elections were not corrupted, then that idea is against those principles, it is itself the corrupted idea trying to geopardize democracy. But if it is true that the elections were corrupted, then that idea is in fact fighting to protect those principles.
The same thing applies here. Whatever message Facebook in the end feels is helping the principles will be allowed, if right now it's helping Ukraine motivate its troops, rally support and defend itself, then that's going to be the policies. It's all logical from the principles. Ukraine is seen as fighting for its right to democracy, liberty and freedom, and Russia is seen as fighting against that.
If they keep quiet about the issue, the public might protest about their inaction. If they make a move like they've done now, it's going to look like they are pro hate speech which also does not look good from the perspective of humanity.
I think principles went out the window when both the new generation and journalists decided:
"You can't stay still on a moving train." I.e., everything is biased, no one is objective, and no platform can be objective because everything has an implicit position (even no position is a position). In other words, a very postmodern "no objective truth can be obtained" take.
So yes, the rational, logical next step is loosey goosey terms and conditions that change, cynical decisions based on who's talking, couched loosely in some sort of vague idea or principle. It does remind me a lot of the corporate world.
I find it fascinating that people believe that there was ever an unbiased, objective news media. This literally has never been the case in the total history of the industry. Journalists are paid to contextualize the data they find, not to regurgitate it.
They used to try. Surely you can conceptualize a spectrum whereby on one the one side, people try very hard to be objective and be good at it, then where maybe they try a little less hard, or lack knowledge, or whatnot, and then continuing on the spectrum, where people throw up their hands and proclaim that no one can be objective, so who cares anyway.
I cannot accept the framing as only the last one: that we've magically discovered being unbiased is no longer a worthwhile goal, so throw up our hands and take a stand on every controversial topic, pick a side every time. No.
No, they didn't. That's my point. One of the most famous scenes in US TV News history was when Walter Kronkite, America's news daddy, finally had enough regarding the bullshit peddled by national television networks regarding the Vietnam war. It was NEVER unbiased. People love to believe that the news USED to be unbiased because the news produced at the time reconciles with their memory of the events they want to believe to be true. But we keep clippings of literally everything, and the one thing that is crystal clear is that what is being reported has always been focused through the lens of the mind of the person doing that reporting.
Go look at this link, which is a collection at Kent State University of articles written about the massacre at the school from the time of the shootings:
Biased and manipulated news is a spectrum like security. You can find instances of anything in the past of you look hard enough. We are currently in a time of more bias and manipulation than the 60s/70s.
Additionally, pointing out that Facebook lacks any fundamental principles and is just a reed in the wind is a great observation.
Not even close - look up COINTELPRO and how many of the letters that were sent by the discoverers of that information ACTUALLY made it, let alone how few that did make it actually got published. Hint : very few.
The media has always had to kowtow to some degree to local authority, and there is always the element of ‘the truth we choose to believe’ (or are being told to believe) being published over harder reality. The west tends to be more transparent than most, and more honest than most, but everyone is very far from, and has always been very far from, any sort of unbiased view.
COINTELPRO was a thing, yes, but now almost all news is manipulated. Then stuff related to those stories was, big difference.
>The media has always had to kowtow to some degree to local authority,
Yes, that's what I mean, to what degree? That degree is much greater now than it was in the past, except the one doing the manipulation isn't necessarily the government.
The incentive to lie and manipulate is greater now than in the past. New information technology (nowadays social media....) increases the benefits of lying, and decreases the costs of doing so effectively. So I would expect there to be more today than 40 years ago.
News in that era was "unbiased" mostly because the US government had a soft censorship regime in the form of the FCC and corporate ownership of TV spectrum. Walter Kronkite calling out the government on Vietnam was the exception rather than the norm. What people are remembering isn't "objectivity", it's one particular bias[0] everyone was required to have in journalism - i.e. the illusion of objectivity.
Today's "biased" news is just regression to the American mean. When people got their news from newspapers, almost a century ago, you had similar levels of editorialization, bias, closed-mindedness, clickbait, misinformation, and so on. The "unbiased" era was largely a product of technical limitations that went away with cable, and later the Internet.
The news I consume presents multiple angles on stories. I heard an interview with a Douma member a couple of days ago who was claiming that Ukraine was bombing its own citizens
The journalist asked her what evidence they had, she said she had some, but when pushed she said "Russians just don't [bomb cities]", and couldn't produce any evidence. other than kept repeating that "Russian Troops do not bomb Ukrainian cities". It's an astounding claim given that we see Ukrainian cities being bombed and we see Russian troops in Ukraine.
There is objective truth, and there is objective lying. Maria Butina was the latter.
Individual journalists indeed tried (and still do), however editors and upper management have always tried to steer their staff in the direction which mostly benefits their shareholders or their biggest advertisers. If journalists still persist and write stories exposing the wrong people, those journalists do loose their jobs and their stories do get canned or watered down (e.g. with equal presentation of “the other side”).
Editors aren’t always evil and do this on purpose, however as humans we all have implicit biases. And our biases increase if we feel like we owe somebody a favor (this is why doctors are not allowed to accept gifts from pharmaceutical companies in many countries). If upper management tells a senior editor that company A is their biggest advertiser, and a journalist tells a story unfavorable to company A, then the senior editor might feel like company A doesn’t deserve this treatment and orders a counter story which exonerates the company to be presented on the same page.
Eh, journalists are human and many have very strong political and ideological views that are quite apparent in their writing. Editors try to tie together the paper into a coherent voice and brand, which also needs to be able to ‘feed itself’ somehow.
2. My rational way of thinking has lead me to certain set of beliefs about the world and how it operates
3. I don't think about these beliefs all the time, because they make sense to me, but I reserve the right to change them should my perception change
4. It may take a while for my beliefs to change since these are conclusions I have made after thinking about topics rationally for a period of time. A sunk cost of sorts, if you will.
I think that most people would see that list and say hey, there's a person who is probably rational and introspective.
Now add the following:
0. I am a journalist
5. I report facts objectively but my decision making process on what is important to the reader may be affected by my human brain and my idea of the situation garnered from my experience with the subject matter and my human beliefs
This still isn't the dreaded "media bias," although it's clearly a bias. We have more accurate journalism right now than in any other part of human history. We just have more editorialising too.
What I'm specifically arguing against is that there was ever a time when there WASN'T bias in journalism. That's nonsense.
Journalism is a craft which takes a level of expertise to master. Many journalists have spent decades mastering this craft which sometimes includes a degree in higher education. Knowing and adjusting for your biases is very much a part of this craft and good journalists do get really good at that skill. In fact knowing and adjusting for your biases is such a big part of journalism that you can assume that a journalist that doesn’t possess this skill is gonna be pretty poor at their job.
Now this is not to say that good journalists employ this skill effortlessly and infallibly. No of course not, however a good journalist will do this better then a person who is not skilled in the craft of journalism. You might claim that I’m putting journalists on a high horse here, however I’m only doing so by recognizing that they practice a craft with increasing skill levels. If this puts journalists on a high horse, then same can be said about physicists or doctors, in that they get better at their craft with practice.
NYT has history of not being objective. 1930s New York Times purposefully lied about famine in Ukraine which purposefully starved millions. Walter Duranty got a Pulitzer Prize for that fake journalism.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/re...
Simply not true. Read about the news industry from the founders to yellow journalism to the world wars to present day. There was never a time when news was objective. It wasn't created to be.
> I cannot accept the framing as only the last one: that we've magically discovered being unbiased is no longer a worthwhile goal
It was never an achievable goal. So what we should strive for is a diversity of opinions via a genuine set of diverse news organizations. Sadly, most of the media is owned by a few multinationals who themselves are owned by the same controlling interests.
But the ideological bias among the major media was more consistent, and when you get the same bias everywhere you look, it seems a lot like objectivity.
I don't know anyone who actually believes that. However, recognizing that objectivity in journalism is an ideal impossible to reach doesn't mean all variations are equal, or that attempting to hew closer to the idea is pointless.
I think there is a reasonable argument the the general state of journalism and and availability of news to the general public is worse now than it was, say, 30 years ago. Or that 200 years ago was worse than now. I'm not sure I'm convinced, but the arguments aren't prima facie wrong.
We're talking early to mid 90's. I agree it was bad on all those aspects - but some at least are arguably notably worse now. How it nets out isn't obvious.
If you are talking about mine, it never did. I haven't edited it, it refers to 30 years ago or 200. The one I was replying to didn't either, at least when I read it.
Perhaps you meant something upstream or a sibling comment?
Yes, they were never unbiased or objective, but they would often try to be a bit less biased and a bit objective. Now some journalists openly mock such efforts and see their job as creating a narrative that suits their political agenda.
This is shocking to me and others because the watered down objectivity of the past was still better than nothing.
I didn’t grow up in America so this might be different there, but I remember news from my early adult years and they were indeed badly biased. In the past 10 years, two things have changed however, the state media got more powerful and hired a bunch of qualified people, and—more importantly—independent media has proliferated. The media landscape of today is unrecognizable. Accountability hardly existed in the past, but now it does. You can see this by simply comparing the behavior of older politicians who were used to get away with everything and still continue their corrupt behavior, which today they are exposed doing all the time.
If anything—at least where I’m from—the news is still biases (always has been) but this bias which used to favor the rich and the powerful, has radically shifted to favor ordinary people. The news of the past that I remembered were actively—and probably knowingly—biased in favor of their stakeholders. Today they don’t, or at least not nearly to the same degree.
I think that part of the problem is that people confuse journalism, which is what reporters at newspapers and people in the field do, and editorialism, which is what normally happens on Fox and CNN.
Editorials are not journalism, but when the journalism disagrees with people who are accustomed to the nature of the editorials they enjoy, they then see bias on the part of the journalists instead of the commentators.
Even if an article is written that only contains hard facts there are many ways it can be biased. It could exclude inconvenient facts (this is the most common), it can have inconvenient information at the end of the article where most people don't read. Some news can also just be ignored. Some parts of a story are never surfaced simply because no one cares about it or knows about it.
Journalists are flawed humans like everyone else and expecting them to produce complete and objective reporting is not only unfair it is literally impossible.
So no, I do not believe there is such a thing as objective reporting generated by a single human or a single organization. The only true, unbiased journalism would be some sort of technology that could let everyone view the full entirety of any event from any perspective without a human brain and sensory system in between. That's not practical.
Practically speaking, it is up to the reader to consume as many varying sources as possible and then come to their own conclusion. But who has time for that?
Simply choosing what gets reporter time or page space or air time or whatever introduces huge bias, even if the coverage itself is meaningfully "objective". Listen to NPR (let alone anything else) and you'd think there's rarely labor action happening. Listen to Democracy Now and you'd think there's constantly labor action happening.
More importantly, because neither system gives you meaningful context, both of those things you mention can be true at the same time and you could never know which to trust.
When you want to validate a piece of information in your view of the world (to use your example, "how common is labor action?"), the most important question to ask (and often the question with the most obscure answer) is "what is the base rate?".
Wasnt there an old ~8 hour long movie about the media making up stories to sell news?
Edit: I cannot remember the name, I just remember being in JB HiFi in Australia looking at DVDs and there was an old black and white movie from the 20s or 30s about a guy who has a new empire but they make up stories to sell the paper and none of it was real. I just remember not buying it because the time was something like 6-8 hours long.
And dozens of essays by post-modern philosophers about (e.g. Public Opinion Does Not Exist by Bourdieu [1972]) and subsequent psychological studies about inherent biases, which together pretty resoundingly proves the non-existence of unbiased media. Furthermore it shows that biases correlate with benefactors, so you can expect more biases in platforms which rely on shareholders, named donations or advertisements.
> Journalists are paid to contextualize the data they find, not to regurgitate it.
Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding.
'Vaccines contain Mercury' and 'this meal contains Chlorine' is correct information - there is an atom of mercury in the molecule of RNA and an atom of chlorine in table salt.
But your examples are not correct information. "We're all made of star stuff" does not mean we're stars. A molecule of RNA is not mercury and table salt is not chlorine.
Civics and history education (at least in the US, I dunno about elsewhere) is astonishingly, dangerously bad. Is the reason these notions are so common, I think.
It doesn't surprise me that a novel medium would change its rules as unexpected events arise.
I've got plenty of qualms about the way Facebook has handled it, but of course there was something wrong with the rules -- they had never tried them out under these circumstances. All three of the things you cite are using/abusing social media in ways that have never been done before.
Principles are great, but if you can't change your principles when the world changes around you, then they're not so much "principles" as "dogma". The world is a complex and difficult place, and I don't expect any simple set of principles to be adequate to all of the things I don't anticipate. I try to anticipate everything I can, but it's no surprise that I'm sometimes surprised.
There have been many wars around the world since Facebook was founded in 2004. What about these circumstances is different than with other armed conflicts? Why should the principles change?
None of those threatened to become nuclear wars. While nuclear-armed nations have been at war, there was never any real suggestion that nuclear weapons would be used.
Also, Facebook has become increasingly conscious over the past half-decade or so of the role that it plays in events. It has already changed its policies to be more activist in preventing the use of its platform for advocating violence. That decision forces more downstream decisions, which will be different than in the past.
So are you proposing that a vague statement by one of the combatant countries which could be interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons in some hypothetical future scenario should be the policy dividing line for Facebook? Back in 2018 the US government suggested that we might use nuclear weapons to retaliate against a serious cyber attack. So by that standard we've been under threat of nuclear war for some time now.
> There have been many wars around the world, why is different now?
Is important to mention that Anti-War feeling is accumulative, not independent events. Everybody is much more upset about this war precisely for having suffered, paid for, and experienced the past wars fiascos.
The free dinner pass card to start wars after 9/11 using fake pretenses has expired. To use twice the "but they have WMD" card would be much more difficult now
Seeing Putin to use exactly the same lies an excuses to blame on other for his own acts is sickening.
India and Pakistan have nukes and shoot at each other and occasionally have KIAs though not technically at war, the rhetoric between the different parties does get violent.
I don't think any of these skirmishes have ever come close to an existential threat to either party. If things ever come to that, I have little doubt that nukes would be used.
Principles, treaties, and ideals tend to go out the window when parties are backed in a corner with no alternative options.
Feel free to suggest different rules. Start with the publicly accessible “Community Standards” and edit it to the point where they are consistent and comprehensive in your book with no special cases. We’ll wait.
In reality what you might find is that even some obvious rules like “no naked pictures of obvious minors (<10 years) should be allowed” have exceptions to it. And if you can’t reason why this is true (I’m thinking of a specific picture), then at least admit the task you’re implying is trivial is harder than it looks.
I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but I don't think the picture you're thinking of is actually worth making a hypothetical exception for, FWIW. The genre of which it is a member is censored regularly on all platforms. Just be consistent and point to the rules and live with the ridicule.
Well you are ok with that picture being censored but many others aren’t. You’re proving my point, it’s impossible to please everyone. Everyone has different standards.
The actual principles of FB are make as much profit no matter what it costs others stopping only to make changes when the profit flow might be impacted.
What do you mean new generation? It was Zuckerberg who said “I want to stress the importance of being young and technical. Young people are just smarter.” [1]
I remember being in Sixth Form and then an undergrad while Facebook was in their "web-scale" days: there wasn't (yet) anything untoward being reported (besides the "dumb fucks" quote) - so I like to think that Facebook's principles, then, were more "let's see where this goes" - which isn't much of a principle, I agree - but we were all re-projecting Google's and Apple's story onto Facebook: something along the lines of "they'll make billions of dollars from giving people what they want, how can that possibly be a bad thing?".
So I'd summarize Facebook's then-"principles" as believing in their own naïve optimism about the power of connecting people, but we were all naïve with them - so while it's easy to criticize Facebook now, almost a decade after the corruption started, which of us can point to our own Slashdot or Digg.com comments made prior to ~2012 that predicted this?
The world isn’t black and white. While I don’t really support this specific Meta policy, it would be myoptic to think you could create a set of rules that will last forever. That’s why the US laws didn’t end with the constitution, the constitution itself can be amended, and we have judges who interpret individual laws for individual cases.
> it would be myoptic to think you could create a set of rules that will last forever.
It's not a matter of rules lasting forever. It's applying the rules evenly and fairly. All the ukraine war has done is expose the hypocrisy of the west and especially the virtue signaling tech/social media platforms.
"century defining" might be too much hyperbole given we've had two world wars in the last 103 years, but certainly from the perspective of Facebook, Covid and Ukraine have been perhaps the largest crises they've seen since over the course of their existence.
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” - 1984
Tech companies are making themselves active participants in conflicts involving powerful countries. Sooner or later, one of those countries is going to reach out and strike back in the physical world. It's just a matter of time. When it was little nudges in color revolutions in relatively weak countries, there was not much to worry about. Now? They're playing with fire and the tech folks doesn't seem they have a clue that this is the case. They feel very secure launching attacks against nation-states that have histories of creating very bad luck for unprotected outsiders who involve themselves in a conflict.
And... rightly so? I mean, we know who we want to win here. There's a good side and a bad side. Have we really gone so far down the rabbit hole of "media neutrality" that a unilateral military invasion needs to be protected as... a form of speech, I guess?
No, that's wrong. Russia is wrong. Limiting Russia's ability to invade its neighbors isn't being "biased" in a discussion about different perspectives, it's doing the right thing.
At some point, there's a line drawn at the limit to tolerance. And Russia literally rolled tanks over it.
Could you please stop spouting Russian propaganda at every step? Russia has a far bigger Neo Nazi problem then Ukraine, on top of that it isn't exactly the Ukranian Neo Nazi's that are currently invading another country to slaughter their citizens.
Neo Nazi's are unfortunately all too common, in the context of Ukraine they are merely a very convenient excuse to invade another sovereign country.
Help me understand what I said that is Russian propaganda. I don't think anybody denies the Ukrainian Azov Battalion is clearly Neo-Nazi. Are you saying this is one of those things that is best left unsaid, since it is an uncomfortable truth? Is that what makes it propaganda in your mind? Because nobody denies the accuracy of it.
It's especially odd that you call it Russian propaganda since in the same sentence I call out the Russians for invading a sovereign country.
> Are you referring to the Ukrainian Azov Battalion with their Nazi ideology, or the Russians who have invaded a sovereign country?
> The choice may seem simple to you, but it's not as easy as you might think for many to side with avowed Nazi's either..
What you're implying is that there is some moral justification to invading Ukraine if the goal is to eliminate the Nazi Azov battalion. That is false -- there is no justification at all. The reason is that if you applied this standard equally to all countries (i.e. "if x% of population is Nazi, then invade"), then you could invade 90%+(just to be conservative) of the countries in the world: how many people are there in the Azov battalion? 2k? 3k? 5k? Ukraine has a population of 44 million. How many Nazis are there in the United States? How many Nazis are there in Germany? How many Nazis are there in Mongolia? And how many Nazis are there in Russia itself? If you're not planning to "de-naizify" all of them, then "de-nazification" is but a meaningless excuse to your invasion, aka -- propaganda.
The comment was in response to the statement that "the choice was clear" on who should be supported. Except it's not. There is a lot of blame to go around, it's been abundantly clear for 25 years that NATO expansion to Ukraine & Georgia would result in war[1]. So when we have continually pushed for that, we have been pushing for war.
Also, we can't ignore the US-backed Ukrainian coup/revolution in 2014[2] which then resulted in the invasion of Crimea. Nor can we ignore that after the democratically elected government in Ukraine was removed via that coup/revolution, that the US handpicked the post-coup leadership in Ukraine and helped rewrite the Constitution to put NATO membership back on the table, knowing this would antagonize Russia.[3]
Should we not consider all of these things? Russia is clearly being the aggressor now that they have decided to invade Ukraine, but that didn't happen in a vacuum. Our actions in the West are what has led to this, either intentionally or though incompetence. Ignoring everything that happened before February 24th is ignorant.
However I do not expect this to stop you from continuing to peddle the same misleading talking point to each new passer-by who didn't think to check just how one-note your comment history is.
You linked to people who disagree, or have a different take on the situation. I'm not sure what you think that means.
I have simply pointed out that the revolution/coup of 2014 that installed the current Ukrainian government was A)Unconstitutional and B)Supported by the US, which is obviously the main adversary to Russia. I also pointed out that the idea of pushing Ukraine and/or Georgia towards NATO has been known for the last 25 years to be a guaranteed precursor to war with Russia.
These facts aren't in dispute, so there is nothing to call me out on. Now, you can have the opinion that the coup was a good thing for the Ukrainian people and that it's ok to install a pro-US government in Ukraine or that they should be in NATO regardless of how that concerns Russia. Those are opinions and can be debated. But you can't dismiss facts. And the above are facts.
> These facts aren't in dispute, so there is nothing to call me out on
Yes, very nice.
however as stated before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30665507 Your argument is at best semantic; and entirely misleading, in a propagandistic way. I call you out on that, and I am not the first
> Supported by the US
Citation needed. You called it "CIA-backed" earlier, which is a worse smear. You can deny the Ukrainian people agency over their own fate then, as a precursor to denying it to them now.
The facts on the ground say otherwise. Ukraine is not behaving as if they have an "illegitimate regime". Implying otherwise - and doing so repeatedly - is behaviour that shows that you have an agenda.
> I also pointed out that the idea of pushing Ukraine and/or Georgia towards NATO has been known for the last 25 years to be a guaranteed precursor to war with Russia.
"look what you made me do" is again, the logic of an abuser.
Your citations provided upthread say nothing of the sort. This is pretty misleading stuff.
Regarding "ok to install a pro-US government in Ukraine" is a complete mischaracterisation; the question is whether it's OK for a nation to determine their own fate or not. Regardless of which power they choose to be "pro". I'm of the opinion that it is vital; you're clearly against that self-determination, calling it a "coup", repeatedly, for tendentious reasons.
Seems like this took place after the transfer of power. You can't cause a transfer of power after it happens. But I don't think you're that stupid,. you're just trying to fool people with misleading links.
Government behaving badly? isn't the answer - according to you - to wait until the next election and change leaders (1)? "That is how democracy works."
Oh wait, Ukraine did that in 2019 when they elected Zelensky by a wide margin (2). Job done. right? Problem solved, no need to bring it up again.
All this irrelevant frothing about CIA, US is designed to misdirect away from Ukraine's self-determination. Who they align with or not is their choice. In 2014, 2019 or any other year.
Zelensky was elected in 2019, five years later, does that change yours? Are you even going to talk about that at all?
> So no, that is 100% incorrect.
Funny that Wikipedia lists a lot of things happening in December and January too. "100% wrong" is misleading as always. Looks like the Ukrainian people took the initiative on this one.
Those goal posts must be getting heavy. So to recap, the US was involved in the 2014 coup and picked their guy to take power in Ukraine. Learning that, your opinion has not changed at all. So, now we see what this is.
"thier guy" You are studiously avoiding mentioning that this was the guy before the guy before Zelensky. Deceptive as always. Zelensky was elected in 2019, five years later. Are you even going to talk about that at all?
Well this drives up demand for the body-guard & security industry. And then maybe the military industry.. Soon we’ll see Meta buying submarines to invest in its in-house defence department or something
I mean, what is the country going to do? At best they can launch a cyber attack (or a lot of them). Any physical action would immediately involve the host country - bombing the Facebook HQ for example could be considered a terrorist act or even a war declaration.
People who get on Putin's bad side have a history of ending up with things like polonium and nerve agents inside their bodies, even when living in western countries. Bombing facebook would likely be further than even Russia is willing to go, but I wouldn't put it past them to poison their head of PR or something.
I wish I had enough karma to downvote you. You are either extremely uninformed ( to the point where stupidity is actually a better explanation than ignorance) or, more likely, maliciously spreading misinformation.
Let me remove any kind of doubt. Ukraine is being invaded by a dictator deserving of all condemnation. Putin has started an illegal war and this is bad. No part of his actions are justifiable.
What is not happening in Ukraine however is a genocide. To claim that is wrong, unhelpful and stupid.
All this talk of genocide and nazism in Ukraine is devaluing the meaning of those words. Yes there is considerable suffering and it is a terrible conflict but, and maybe people don't use words literally anymore or don't care about history, to include either of those words is grossly inaccurate verging on absolute ignorance or troll.
>All this talk of genocide and nazism in Ukraine is devaluing the meaning of those words.
I think what is extremely devaluing and disrespectful of the past anti-nazi fighters and genocide victims is to allow Nazism and genocide on our watch.
> is grossly inaccurate verging on absolute ignorance or troll.
whole country of Ukraine are ignorant trolls? In Ukraine they normally call it a Russian fascism - "russism" ['rashizm'] for short and thus "russist occupants/invaders". It is called the same in Baltic countries too. And if you don't see how the proclaimed by Putin "Great Russia" ideology is nazism when you just don't know what nazism is.
>people don't use words literally anymore or don't care about history
looks like you have no idea what you're talking about. My Ukrainian grandparents were under German occupation. From the other, Russian, side of the family - significant number of the members of extended family fought against German Nazi in WWII with some KIA/highly decorated/etc.
Nazism: Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed.
—-
Where is the antisemitism, anti-communism, or eugenics - i don't see any of that which are CORE to nazism?
Im sorry this situation is terrible in Ukraine but it is not genocide or nazism.
Only open antisemitism seems to be missing currently (though i'm not a Jew and can't really comment how being a Jew may feel these days in Russia) even though "global Zionism" as an enemy is present as undercurrent in the Great Russia myth, the anti-communism is definitely there, and racism and eugenics is a bit in the background and not declared clearly under those names (as the names carry baggage).
Those specifics aren't core to nazism. The principles behind those are core. I.e. instead of antisemitism there may be hate to some other ethnicity for example.
"Nazism is a form of fascism,[2][3][4][5] with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. "
That "disdain" is 110%, a core thing of the current Russian Fascism and you can just s/German/Russia/g below (from the same https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism )
"Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist neopagan Völkisch movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century"
There is also motif of WWI defeat which in modern Russia is USSR collapse as a defeat in Cold War.
This sucks that we are debating how shirty the situation is in ukraine. It is terrible, non starter.
Unless I'm very misinformed I dont see any eugenics or antisemtism which are core to nazism. The words being used to describe this (genocide and nazisim) devalue the historic weight of those powerful words.
Genocidal war is not what is occurring. It is a land war where Putin wants to gain access to and control significant resources and a warm body of water in the southeast.
um... there's a huge subtext going on here that you are glossing over. Putin has said that the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was the fall of the Soviet union. He has intoned that he wishes to restore the former glory of the Soviet Union in Russia. He is now currently displaying on state run media, images of tanks flying the soviet flag as they invade Ukraine. He has called into question the very nature of the Ukrainian state as a legitimate entity. He has called into question the very nature the Ukrainian people as a legitimate ethnic group, claiming they are in fact Russians. He is now conducting a war which encroaches on their national identity by invading its borders, and he is engaged in specifically targeting civilians, including hospitals and fleeing refugees. He is also engaged in a vast information war against Ukrainians, and if he's successful in taking over Ukraine that information war will come to them as well. This isn't merely about gaining access to a port, this is about erasing a people, its history, and its identity.
I've gotta say, if this is not recognizable as genocidal war to you, can you please lay down a firm line that needs to be crossed before you apply that term? Because the way things are going if Putin doesn't cross it today, he will soon enough.
Because what do you think happens if Putin takes over Ukraine? When you look at the images of the bombed hospitals, what do you think happens next, after the brutal dictator takes over the country filled with people whom he claims are Nazis?
I would agree that this isn't genocide, but the russian forces are playing extremely loose with civilian casualties. It's clear that Putin is trying to destroy Ukrainian culture/independent spirit which could be considered a form of genocide I guess.
Back then when Soviet Union troops were in Afghanistan, I believe, that western propaganda used the same words: independent spirit, culture, freedom, civilian casualties.
However, when USA troops came to Afghanistan... Of course american troops were fighting terrorists. They did no harm to civilians, they came to spread freedom, boost independent spirit, and significantly contributed to Afghan culture.
>the russian forces are playing extremely loose with civilian casualties.
one of the main reason for the indiscriminate shelling and bombing of the cities that Russia conducts is displacement of Ukrainians into the West Ukraine and farther, i.e. ethnical cleansing. The much smaller population left will as a a result have a [scared] pro-Russian majority and will "democratically" vote for the government of Ukraine (or whatever part of Ukraine Russia wants to hold, and they would prefer it to include Kiev as that would make it "Ukraine") doing what Russia wants.
It is a genocidal war because Ukrainians are being killed and displaced for refusal to accept a Russian identity. Putin is pretty clear in denying to Ukrainians their identity and statehood. His plans for Ukrainians are like that of Hitler who wanted that land too for Slavic people - displacement and killing of resisting ones, conversion to "Russian" identity for the rest on those lands with limited statehood under control of the Great Russia.
The denial of sovereignty here is just a tool to achieve the goal Putin openly declared in particular in his editorial and speeches - erasing of Ukrainians national identity. In order to achieve that goal he kills and displaces carriers of that national and ethnic identity, ie. Ukrainians, and that is genocide.
"
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
"
A genocidal war is when someone kills an entire group of people over immutable characteristics. One country refusing to accept another country's power doesn't make a genocidal war. Your definition of genocide suggests that every war ever fought was genocidal, which is clearly not the case.
It's one thing to take over a territory from a controlling entity like a government or a king. It's another thing to take over a territory and claim that you're doing so because the ruling regime are Nazis, when they're not; and you're saving the people because they're Russians, when they're not. It's even quite another thing to embrace the ones who welcome your rewriting of history while murdering those who reject it. That's what elevates this to a genocide rather than just a territory grab.
Now show an official Ukraine policy documents declaring targeting Russians based on Russian national or ethnic identity. A pattern of such activity without official policy documents would do to. Though for example the fact that mostly Russians are killed in the invading tanks doesn't qualify because it is just happens that the tanks are manned mostly by Russians and those Russians are killed not for being Russians, they are killed for driving invading tanks.
For the current genocide conducted by Russia in Ukraine Putin's editorial and speeches, including the speech declaring the war, declaring erasure of Ukrainian national and ethnic identity are such official policy documents.
No, it's not about land, but about people. Russians use casette bombs in cities [1], try to circle and lock cities while continuing to bomb them [2]. Russian pilots know they bomb civil buildings following the orders and continue doing so [3].
Wikipedia defines genocide as:
> Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people, usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group.
We can call it as we want. History will judge.
But we know the duck test: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.
The UN definition of genocide requires acts of violence with the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" (emphasis mine).[1]
Putin and Russian have made it clear that they intend to destroy the very idea of Ukraine.
For evidence of this, see[2], a book which has been used for the last 3 decades to indoctrinate individuals in the Russian government.
The existence of this book, and the fact that its author, Aleksander Dugin, has Putin's ear (and has even been called "Putin's Brain"), is evidence of the intent behind the invasion of Ukraine. In the eyes of Russian leadership, Ukraine does not exist.
To realize their goals, Russia does not need to kill all of the people of "the Ukraine" as they call it. Instead they must accomplish the erasure of the concept of Ukraine as a separate nation, people, and culture.
In other words, they must "destroy... a national... group, as such".
Therefore, according to the definition given by the UN of the term "genocide", the Russian war in Ukraine is genocidal.
All arguments that I have seen to the contrary point to the lack of intention to kill every Ukrainian. As shown above, killing everyone in a group is not required to constitute genocide.
I'll go one further. Here's the definition of "genocide" from Oxford:
"The deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group."
It's not genocide, but if Russia wins there will undoubtedly be a lot of "cleaning". Their plans include arresting anyone who still resists, and who knows what will actually happen to the arrested.
Judging by the Russian prisons where they rape political prisoners with dirty sticks... it could be pretty bad.
I wonder if Facebook would be equally lenient to, say, Palestinians calling for violence against Israeli soldiers; or Houthis calling for violence against Saudi Arabian ones.
Or indeed the New York Post posting a factually correct article about a laptop.
Incidentally, as someone from the UK who was unfortunate enough to have him as my MP for years, I'll also point out that Nick Clegg is one of the most craven, cowardly, pathetic pieces of corporate slime in existence. Almost antipathetically opposed to the concept of "principles" because they get in the way of his grubbing for cash from any source imaginable
I’m honestly hyped for a new golden age of movies and games where Russians are the bad guys. I feel like Russian bad guys always had more character and really made you want to see the hero outmaneuver them. Arabs just didn’t do it for me the last two decades.
I think it stems from the fact that fighting terrorists is asymmetrical warfare. The Russians can go just as hard as the US can, though the US has vastly more military resources and the power of NATO behind it.
Will it be an economic strategy where the player gets to decide to stop buying Russian gas by 2030? You know, do the one thing that Pu and buddies actually care about.
Am I right to assume what Meta would adhere to the same principles in any other similar case? Eg (countries and nationalities are work of fiction and are the products of the author's imagination):
$string = 'Two weeks into $country1's war in $country2, a Meta spokesperson said on Thursday the company had temporarily eased its rules for political speech, allowing posts such as "death to the $nationality invaders," although it would not allow calls for violence against $nationality civilians'
$country1 = 'Russia', 'US, 'Israel', 'UAE'
$country2 = 'Ukraine', 'Iraq', 'Palestine', 'Yemen'
$nationality = 'Russian', 'American', 'Israeli', 'Saudi'
foreach ($i in 0..3) {...}
In my own personal opinion a company what decides what some people, chosen by some arbitrary attributes, are more equal than others can never claim to have a better moral principles than some $country Ministry of Truth.
> would adhere to the same principles in any other similar case?
Consistency isn’t the paramount principle in a moral system. If you have a compulsion for kicking babies, controlling that impulse most of the time is better than going hog wild on a kindergarten because you lost control once.
Facebook is an awful company. But it’s doing the right thing here. That action commendable, even if it’s doer is usually not.
No, its just likely that the moral system isn't 100% consistent and that's OK in meat-based systems because any system that was 100% consistent would be horrifying, ineffective, or too complex for any meat brain to understand.
Do you have any examples of any moral system that doesn’t contradict itself logically somewhere? I haven’t run across one.
Near as I can tell, there often fundamentally HAS to be a logical contradiction somewhere, or unsupported assertion which conflicts
with some objective fact sometimes.
I wonder if, like I, people see the word "Russia" and think it means two distinct things: the mobsters and their network of organized embezzling and crime and terror to protect themselves who currently control the Kremlin, and the millions of innocent people along for the ride.
Seems Russia has this tail recursive shitty luck of essentially mobsters raping the country for well over a century.
Note, this is exactly as true of Chinese media/propaganda (CGTN etc). They are all over Tiktok, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook etc... but if you see someone posting from there, you can assume that it is likely state sponsored. It is illegal for a national to use a VPN to access those sites, and dangerous to do so if it upsets anyone in power.
Pretty sure Russia took responsibility for the hospital but my understanding is Russia claims their intelligence was 1.) it was no longer a functioning hospital and 2.) used as a base of operations for the fascist Azov Battalion... not that it didn't happen.
I'm very sorry for the situation you're in. Could you elaborate on your fears for Romania?
Putin's attempt to annex Ukraine has been very damaging to Russia's economy and (I assume) its conventional military strength. Putin's actions also placed the rest of Europe on high alert.
So even if Putin manages to secure control of eastern Ukraine, I assume it would take many years before Russia is strong enough to attempt another expansion. And I expect nearby countries would use that time very productively.
Typically if the economy is collapsing during a military action like this, the gov’t has only two options:
1) stop (which in this situation would mean admitting that it was a bad idea/defeat, and almost certainly lead to Putin’s death and the collapse of the gov’t)
Or
2) double down and switch to a military economy, using outside sanctions as proof that they were right and everyone else WAS out to get the country.
Guess which one they seem to be doing?
And if they successfully switch to us vs them’ing the entire world, they can’t let peace happen or folks will start thinking. They need a constant enemy.
Wow, Russia has messed up really badly then. I guess their navigation wasn't working since they ended up on all accessible sites of Ukraine, including next to Kyiv. While announcing an operation in Donbass
When Crimea was annexed, there were many articles on Azov Battalion and the implications that it was the best thing (capable fighters who will defend the country) and the worst thing (they're Fascists) and how that would play out if Russia invaded.
Since the invasion, I haven't seen any articles on the topic and the US media have gone suddenly silent on their involvement. I find it kind of odd considering there is such a preoccupation with Nazi's in this country, they would just ignore this part of the narrative.
"Since the invasion, I haven't seen any articles on the topic and the US media have gone suddenly silent on their involvement." that's just not true pick your favourite search engine and you see articles on this topic from every major outlet.I checked for this Nyt, WP (US) , der spiegel(ger), guardian(uk). You see articles coming up the last 2 weeks, another spike was 2017 and before 2014. I guess if ran an analysis for I'd see spikes mentioning Azov, whenever the Ukranian topic was in the media
You're right, and yet I disagree with your main point. For every article about Azov or other far-right nationalists, there are like 100 saying Russia is spreading misinformation about Nazism in Ukraine (which can of course be true too). The ratio is not appropriate in my very subjective opinion.
Another point about you mentioning The Guardian- I've always found before, specially so during this conflict, British media presents comparatively balanced narrative than American ones. Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" is being staged right in front of our eyes.
What ratio is appropriate once Russia has used this excuse to invade a sovereign nation? The time for having concern about Azov battalion seems well past. There was never such ultimatum as "get rid of Nazis or we will do it for you". It was never a real concern, but a pretext, their own manufactured consent.
It's curious as to why we don't treat western govt / media sources as "propaganda" but everything Russian is. I fully agree with the label, but its not being applied to the west. How long were western media just regurgitating that "biolabs" was "Russian disinformation" and writing "fact checks" which just parrot the official government narrative until they realized the Russians were going to capture them then they just admit it in an open hearing? I don't believe a word of what either side says. The moral superiority gap has shrunk to next to nothing.
Here you are perpetuating more western propaganda and potential misinformation. First of all the difference between a "biolab" and a "bioweapons lab" is a semantic difference without actual substance. If covid was released out of the wuhan lab, the now predominate theory, this wasn't a "bioweapons lab" but just a "biolab". What is the practical difference? Fact is, anyone performing research that could be used as a bioweapon doesn't actually call it a bioweapon. They just in practice do all the same things a bioweapons lab would and pretend its just "for defense". You say potato, I say potato.
The line coming out of the US gov't no longer even makes sense, IMO.
They've claimed, like you, that the labs were just general biolabs you'd find at any university, and anything related to WMD is just Russian "disinformation."
But they've also claimed that these labs were old Soviet-era weapons research labs the DOD was helping to close down.
So which is it?
If they're closing down old weapons labs, why'd it take 17 years? If they're not weapons labs, why are they so afraid (as Nuland from State Dep't claimed) of the Russians seizing or destroying them?
If they're just research labs for the good of humanity, the gov't needs to explain to us taxpayers why they continue building up infrastructure and subsidizing research and jobs in foreign countries with money borrowed from China and / or printed up, which is now exacerbating inflation. How many underemployed PHDs in the US could be doing some research here at home with the hundreds of millions of dollars we've just handed out to Ukraine?
' explain to us taxpayers why they continue building up infrastructure and subsidizing research and jobs in foreign countries with money borrowed from China and / or printed up '
This is a good example of why government spending should be constrained. Fiat currency allows crazy spending and financing endless war. In the medium and long term this harms everyone. In the short term, bio-researchers get grants and toys to play with, and war profiteers get to make more munitions.
It takes 17 years to shut down Frankenstein labs because it costs government nothing to print funds.
"So which is it?"
Most likely a complicated mix of many things.
Why would the ukrainians destroy the soviet labs just to build new ones?
It does seem prudent to destroy dangerous substances that might get involved in combat situations. There is also the possibility of false flag operations.
I think there was a release of docs about using humanized migratory birds to carry disease to specific places. Possibly as a blurred line between studying such mechanisms for defense as opposed to offense. I can’t speak to accuracy of such claims but it does appear that info is being released.
I got it from Russian sources on Telegram, but you did ask what their claim was. You’ll have to go looking for the claims as they’re unlikely to get much airtime in the west. I think it’s to early to tell and if the Russians want me to believe their claims he’ll need to drop a whole lot more docs. AFAIK that hasn’t happened yet, I just was a PowerPoint and some docs that someone had translated, but I have no idea if the translation presented was correct.
Depending on which way the Chinese go with this we could end up with covid was created by the USA in a Ukrainian lab and then sent to China via migratory birds.... which would tie things up in a neat little bow. (Edit: should mention I'm not saying that's what happened - but I'm interested to see if it'll be claimed to have happened)
Yes, although it will "go down on your permanent record". As long as you don't post anything identifiable online or upset anyone, you probably won't be arrested.
Voice of America, RadioFarda, RadioSvoboda and RadioFreeAsia all are by law prohibited to publish their "news" to US public because these disinfo operations are aimed to foreign audiences
This is just a part of Russia's overall playbook. Sow doubt, maintain deniability, gaslight, deflect, and project. It's honestly fascinating to see an entire country treat the global community like an abused spouse.
Beware the British serpent… A US warning about British propaganda. I always get a kick out of governments that routinely lie warn us about other governments lying as if those other governments are the only ones doing it.
It's informative to see that Reuters carries their water, because it fits a particular narrative they know brings $/click... I suppose you could look at the author, but by clicking the link you've done their bidding.
There's really no reason for Facebook to make this rule specific to Ukraine. If your country has been invaded by a foreign army which is violently attacking civilians with tanks and bombs, it's perfectly reasonable to cheer for the deaths of the invading soldiers.
This is basically analogous to the concept of self-defense. Actually—would it be against Facebook's rules to post about how you fought off someone who tried to break into your house to kill you?
And, from what I’ve admittedly only briefly read, they’d be right to do so. The only reason this should be acceptable is if Ukrainians are sharing intel on where Russian troops are in order to avoid them (that might break some T&Cs so I can imagine those being lifted temporarily). But not this.
At least, more people will now be exposed to our utter hypocrisy. I used to be a staunch supporter of a free unrestricted internet but the disproportionate power US has is unsustainable - and frankly a threat to sovereign nations. China's firewall seems to have been the right path after all.
Oh please. I don't use Facebook, but the only hypocrisy I've seen is Russian news on Youtube. Russia24, for example, actually banned my country (and probably others except Russia) lol, they were getting too many comments from Ukraine, I guess.
This new rule allowing people to call for death to invaders is pretty idiotic, though. I think they made it so people would stop getting reported/banned for calling Russians fascists... a lot of that going on right now.
Oh is that so? It will be interesting to see if I end up in FB jail over this one. The kinder way to say this is "May the people of Russia remove the blots of tyranny staining their flag."
Also the classic one person's freedom fighter is another's terrorist.
To me reading the Dutch headtitle literally saying ' Facebook allows deadcalls' was something I have never read in my entire life in the west. I am shocked by this absurd statement. I am opposing everything related promoting violence.
Everybody would be fine if FB users would use FB to coordinate resistance (poor choice IMHO but that's not the point), even if this increased coordination would result in inflicted casualties.
This is a very different thing to allow anyone to call for murder of anyone, regardless of the victim wearing a uniform with a specific flag.
What next ? Shall "we" decide geneva convention does not hold for russians ?
Why does anyone actually care about Russia investigating Facebook? Is it surprising? They've done this with every technology that they can't control.
Russia is trying to slander anyone who is accusing them of being the bad guy. Vladimir Putin is very clearly the bad guy in this story. Russia is waging an immoral war. A free sovereign nation making attempts to improve the lives of the citizens within its own borders should not be attacked.
I wonder if they allow to add a narrowing discriminator? What if you posted "death to invading Russian soldiers of Jewish descent"? Even in this simple case it's easy to see how this policy is misguided.
For the context, ’listing as an extremist organisation’ is just a euphemism for forbidding a government-opposing group of people and harassing them individually with prosecution, while ‘opening a criminal case’ means than the gov found another company who's doing too much of the opposition thing. Both are nothing new here.
(Of course, FB's specific action the FB-Kremlin exchange here are rather nonsensical and even comical, compared to the usual proceedings.)
I "admire" how the western world now is all in in the war against Russia, from tech companies to media to the random person on the Internet and between. You can't find many different opinions on the matter, all the focus against the "crazy Putin" and Russia. I wish our "Elites" learned from their western masters how to take a firm stand for your people war and how those masters will throw the "liberal values" in the nearest bin when it contradicts their interests.
Go and ask some countries that were invaded by Russia in the 20th century. They came to help us in the same special operation to Slovakia since 1968 and they finally left in 1989.
At certain times, not taking a side is actually taking a side.
Elie Weisel: "And then I explain to him how naïve we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe."
This what I'm talking about. You assume this is binary situation you're either with "us" (=US and the western bloc) or them (=Russia and it's allies). But for me and many people who developed immunity to the propaganda from most sources it's not. Simple!
Anyway I will understand if an ukrainian diagreed with me or even hated me and will respect their position, but I won't if it was from another person who used to not care for their (democratically elected!) goverment wars in the "middle east" or South America or Africa unless it affected their life style.
So, Russian authorities are going to label Meta an “extremist organization” and if one participates in such organization, f.e. has an account on Facebook, then it's a crime. Fcking brilliant.
It is more complicated. It is not exactly rule of law in Russia. If you are accused of overthrowing the government, having a page on Facebook, which is extremist organization, might be considered aggravating factor.
My source is the definition of an extremist organization. If you don't get that, you are ignorant. And based on what you cite KP(LMAO) you aren't just ignorant, you are delusional.
Interesting development. As I’m heading to the local 5 minute hate meeting, I want to get current in “Who,Whom” hierarchy. Can anyone help me figure it out?
Is it only applying to Russians these days or there are other exceptions?
Can all Arabs post “Death to Israel” or only those within 100 miles of Israel borders? Is reverse allowed?
Can Yemeni call for death of Saudi Royals or is it still frowned upon?
The new rules also allowed praise of Nazi-lite Azov battalions “in the context of defense of Ukraine”. Does it mean that going forward Vaffen-SS can be praised “in context of defense” of 3rd Reich from British and US troops in 1945?
So confused.
Persecution complex is in high gear in Russian media, they obviously aren't going to give the full context of Facebook's position. But if you are western in this site or Russian curious enough to be here, let's drop the idea that it's all Russophobia and Westerners hating all Russians. No one here believes you and it's all seemed pretty clear that everything is happening strictly in response to what is happening in Ukraine
Now we can debate about whether these policies are bad and will backfire in Russia where everything is easily sold as being anti-Russian people, but I'm done reading all the woe is me comments from people who absolutely know better about how it's a persecution of Russians based on hate.
I do think these policies are interpreted as anti-Russian racism internally. Looking at vc.ru (Russian HN) they are scooping up the racism angle at face value, they don't like Putin but enemies 1 and 2 right now are Ukraine and the West. Posts blaming Russia for anything are heavily down voted and responded to with Putin's talking points even though they dislike the man. Don't know if the West should lay off with some of the sanctions and boycotts though, opinion might be the same without them
Ok, let's take those russian it-people which have migrated in recent two weeks to the nearby countries (which just happen to be in this list made by facebook/meta). Yep, now they are in these very countries. And yep in these countries Meta has allowed hate-posting. Wouldn't it result in some discomfort, unease, prejudice?
Quick-note: indeed to the best of my knowledge all people involved in outsourcing are migrating to the countries where hate-posting has been allowed
Of course, everyone can draw a line, no doubt there, no troubles, no xenophobia expected...
It’s amazing to me, because at this point I probably would not be able to tell the difference between a Ukrainian and a Russian if I met one for the first time and there was no speaking involved.
> let's drop the idea that it's all Russophobia and Westerners hating all Russians
I’ve transformed from a Putin critic / Russia advocate to a full-blown Russia hawk in the last *checks calendar* two weeks. But even I can see some people conflating the Russian state with the Russian people.
This isn’t an argument against debilitating sanctions. They should be ratcheted up to energy, and start looking at Chinese complicity, too. But I’ve seen (albeit limited) calls for boycotting Russian restaurants in America, which is pretty close to anti-Russian sentiment. (Of course, that sentiment is reactionary. It never existed prior to the invasion. I’m not sure its backers could name their local Russian, or for that matter Ukrainian, restaurant.)
With all this banning of western media, social media and pornography websites looks like Russian citizens may end up being the most well adjusted and happy people on the planet.
Yeah, they totally look like the most psychologically balanced and friendly people around, gleefully cheering on a fascist war of aggression that is already costing their own country thousands coming home in body bags and a virtual disconnection from the world economy. But yeah, maybe that was all Pornhub and Instagram's fault.
Well, don't we have to compare things to other things to see if they make sense ?
How come all of a sudden call for violence and death is ok ? A private company can decide who's worthy of death threats ? and everybody is ok with that ? War crimes happen every day, there are actual genocides happening right now, nobody gives a flying fuck about them, but oh god, Russia ? fuck them !!! Soon enough we'll call every Russians "monsters" for not rioting against Putin
Looks like it took two weeks for the west to fall back to the classic war time demonisation.
Meta decides what violence is acceptable or not. If you are still on Facebook, you can decide if this is acceptable for you. I would be surprised if they are still here in 10 years. They will probably burn all their money developing the metaverse anyway.
Which is, at the very least, questionable. And risky, because it gives Russia a potential reason to claim "the West" encouraged terrorism against Russia and Russians. At the very least this makes Russian propaganda efforts so much easier...
Well, you don't have to do anything for them to claim something. They can just claim that there is no invasion, that there are no troops there, and that they didn't destroy a hospital... and at the same time claim (on a banned media tool) that you are a terrorist that supported violence against russian military in the same city, Mariupol "which has always been a part of Eastasia".
It's just full on nonsense trolling, but it could go nuclear, and it will have tremendous economic consequences.
> because it gives Russia a potential reason to claim
You have to stop worrying about that. They're still saying they've not invaded Ukraine. They're bombing pregnant mothers in hospitals and claiming they're nazis.
That is not true. Please try to be careful not to unintentionally spread propaganda.
> allowing posts such as "death to the Russian invaders," although it would not allow calls for violence against Russian civilians.
There's a big difference between self defense against an aggressive war and calls for genocide. Targeting invaders from a country's armed forces is not the same as targeting that country's civilians or largest ethnicity.
You may use Meta's platforms to call for the death of this specific list of approved people/groups only. Any other calls for death are not allowed, although the approved list may change at Meta's sole discretion at any time.
Absolutely not. Ukrainians have every right to defend their country. I just find the fact that a corporation has essentially put out a list of entities that they want to see (or are at least ok with seeing) killed pretty dystopian. It's basically the "two minutes of hate" from 1984.
To be honest, the first paragraph does say: “the social network changed its hate speech rules to allow users to call for violence against Russians”. It may very well be that its reuters spreading propaganda.
Unless it's been ninja-edited, you've left off the rest of that sentence, which says "in the context of the war with Ukraine". The article also goes on to say "although it would not allow calls for violence against Russian civilians"
They define credible as: having two "indicators of credibility", such as location or method. That is a considerably higher bar than for any other group. And that's referring to civilians, not soldiers.
In a separate, internal memo, they explicitly say that hate speech and violent speech against Russian civilians is allowed "if the context is the Russian invasion". That's sufficiently vague that the policy allows for dehumanization.
This is already having a real-world impact, even in countries where Facebook explicitly says all hate speech against Russians, even soldiers, is still banned (obviously, as always, enforcement is lacking). See the real-world impact here:
It's also fascinating that you are being accused of spreading misinformation for telling the truth about what Facebook said. Some can say Facebook's statement is vague, but these are PR professionals who can certainly be as vague or as precise as they want to be.
It highlights the future we are heading towards, if those who want unbridled corporate power to "ban misinformation" end up having their way. The statement Meta made yesterday would get memory-holed the next day.
It’s unfortunate because https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29802953 was actually an interesting point. But you’ll need to phrase things as questions rather than statements in order to post constructively on heated topics.
(The “phrase statements as questions” trick has helped me, even if I ignore it more than I should.)
There is tremendous value in having actual principles. So many people either forgotten it or never understood that to begin with.