Facebook will temporarily allow posts calling for violence against Russian soldiers, politicians

[midian182]

What just happened? Facebook and Instagram come down hard on those who post anything advocating violence or death against others, but it is making a temporary exception. Users in some countries will be allowed to call for harm or even death to be inflicted on Russian soldiers and politicians such as Russian president Vladimir Putin or Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko.

Reuters reports that Meta sent internal emails to Facebook and Instagram content moderators confirming a change in its hate speech policy. "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,'" a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

Any calls for violence against Russian civilians remain off limits. "The Hate Speech policy continues to prohibit attacks on Russians," the email confirmed.

The rules calling for the death of leaders are slightly different. These posts are allowed providing they do not include other targets or have "two indicators of credibility," such as the location or method.

"These are temporary measures designed to preserve voice and expression for people who are facing invasion. As always, we are prohibiting calls for violence against Russians outside of the narrow context of the current invasion," Meta added.

The policy change only applies to users in certain countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

"We are issuing a spirit-of-the-policy allowance to allow T1 violent speech that would otherwise be removed under the Hate Speech policy when: (a) targeting Russian soldiers, EXCEPT prisoners of war, or (b) targeting Russians where it's clear that the context is the Russian invasion of Ukraine (e.g., content mentions the invasion, self-defense, etc.)," read the email.

The message also said that the change came about because "Russian soldiers" is being used as a proxy for the Russian military.

The change isn’t without precedent. Vice reported that Facebook allowed people to post the words "Death to Khamenei" or feature videos of people saying or chanting this phrase for a limited two-week period last year.

☝️We demand that 🇺🇸 authorities stop the extremist activities of @Meta, take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice. Users of #Facebook & #Instagram did not give the owners of these platforms the right to determine the criteria of truth and pit nations against each other. https://t.co/1RkrjRmEtA pic.twitter.com/sTacSm4nDt

— Russian Embassy in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) March 11, 2022

The Russian Embassy in the United States responded to the policy change with a statement on Twitter calling for US authorities to stop the "extremist activities" of Meta. "Users of #Facebook & #Instagram did not give the owners of these platforms the right to determine the criteria of truth and pit nations against each other," the Embassy tweeted.

Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have all been blocked by the Russian government in the wake of the Ukraine invasion. In the case of Facebook, it came after the social network blocked state media outlets RT and Sputnik in the European Union. Meta also started demoting content from Facebook and Instagram accounts worldwide that were linked to Russian state media.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/93739-facebook-temporarily-allow-posts-calling-violence-death-against.html

 

[passwordistaco]

You're only allowed to "hate" who they tell you to.

 

[SirDigby]

I still find this very uncomfortable.

 

[Uncle Al]

Playing tit for tat isn't going to solve anything. Fakebook would be wise to just stay completely out of it.

 

[winjer]

Facebook inciting an angry mob.
I can understand the hate against Putin and his regime, especially with the invasion of Ukraine.
What I can't understand is Facebook's hypocrisy.

 

[Dimitriid]

It's very revealing how they decided it's their time to shine and drop the mask to show what their platform actually promotes: Hatred and violence. That's what all social media algorithms discovered long ago: hatred produces the most engagement possible which produces the most advertising dollars for them and the more extremist, the more it engages people.

Facebook is past the point of being able to be regulated and restricted, it just needs to have it's assets taken away from them and completely eliminated from existence.

 

[winjer]

It's very revealing how they decided it's their time to shine and drop the mask to show what their platform actually promotes: Hatred and violence. That's what all social media algorithms discovered long ago: hatred produces the most engagement possible which produces the most advertising dollars for them and the more extremist, the more it engages people.

Facebook is past the point of being able to be regulated and restricted, it just needs to have it's assets taken away from them and completely eliminated from existence.

It's funny how journalists have claimed for decades, that videogames cause violence and all matter of problems. Mostly without proof.
And along comes social media and especially Facebook, creating great problems in our society. Instilling hatred, creating a divided society and manipulating people with mob mentality.
But most journalists completely ignore these issues, as if nothing is going terribly wrong.

 

[UltraModernGuy]

Lol, what boomers still use Facebook?

 

[Xex360]

So now violence is OK. But what do we expect from Facebook, they actively try to ruin people's lives, they ruined the US politics.

 

[psycros]

Facebook has never once banned a single voice calling for the murder of those whom they disagree with politically (I.e. conservatives, republicans, big tech whistleblowers, etc.)

 

[arrowflash]

"We STILL won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians"... yet.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

You're only allowed to "hate" who they tell you to.

If there was ever a clearer reason to dissolve Fakebook, this is it.

 

[Mithan]

If Facebook existed 100 years ago, Hitler would have had a field day with it.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

All the social media virtue signaling and sanctioning in the world isn't going to stop Russia from flattening Ukraine. We should be trying to normalize relations, not forcing weapons into NATO countries to surround them and threat We should be trying to bring them closer, not walling them off.

Sanctioning Germany brought WW2 on.

Sanctioning Russia is making prices skyrocket - for Americans - and chances are they knew it would.

 

[GamerNerves]

I personally boycott this company by not using their services or buying any of their products, only exception being rarely visiting Facebook pages of some small companies. This company is ill-advised, their business model should already tell this. I cannot understand how any knowledgeable person happily pushes aside this fact when using their services, it's not like they paid anything to use them, excluding products. I guess most wise persons are out of Facebook at this point, so only those who don't care or are just lazy to make any moves gather there together, creating ill views of the world, because certainly I am sometimes surprised what people write on the internet or talk to others face to face, since I have not been in the know of these conversations at all (and don't want to). It's sad how this company thrives on their now undoubtedly politically skewed moderation, but I guess people are in fact willing to take sides after a so long period of obscure brainwashing.

I would like to remind all that using Whatsapp is also supporting of this company, like it or not.

 

[Shadowboxer]

Facebook is deeply integrated within our society, there are people who use it for work, some people sell directly with it or organise events. Yet at any moment you can get a ban and theres no route of appeal. Now you could be a victim of "facebook hate". If they deem you are worthy of being hated on you must suffer the consequences. What is the criteria for this? We dont know, they wont tell us.

Several facebook executives are also on record for donating large sums of cash to the democrats in the USA and this is whilst Trump remains barred. This shouldnt be acceptable, especially as they claim Trumps ban is due to him inciting violence yet there are several far more violent leaders across the globe who have spaces on the platform.

We desperately need a digital bill of rights. These private companies are violating private citizens lives, we need to make sure they cant.

 

[mgilbert]

For all intents and purposes, we are at war. I don't use Facebook, and would be happy to see it gone, but I agree with this call, as the elimination of Hitler II (Putin) would save countless lives, and end the suffering of countless more. Putin and his allies, including Trump, need to go, permanently.

 

[Dimitriid]

Lol, what boomers still use Facebook?

They do. They also almost exclusively command the use of tanks, drone missiles and even nukes so not sure why you think being dismissive of a platform with such verifiable power to personally ruin your life and everyone else's is any kind of relief.

Also Twitter, tiktok, youtube, etc. Any social media network you can think of includying the ones you personally use is basically exactly the same

 

[Dunkerton]

"The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in." - Orwell

 

[GamerNerves]

I post separately because your post had not appeared before posting my first one:

All the social media virtue signaling and sanctioning in the world isn't going to stop Russia from flattening Ukraine. We should be trying to normalize relations, not forcing weapons into NATO countries to surround them...

Sanctioning Germany brought WW2 on.

I agree with you on the bolded part, since the biggest issue for Russia is the expansion of NATO, which should be extremely clear for anybody who has watched the news. Their aim is to protect their own country, not to strip weapons from their neighbours, since their neighbours are free to spend on military affairs as much as they want, they just don't want USA to be involved with their nuclear weaponry.

The west is violating UN laws by militarily aiding participant of the war, Ukraine, which prolongs the war that the west and Ukraine were unwilling to avoid for years by not offering something concrete for Russia as a deal.
Virtue signaling is somehow a thing now perhaps to simply save face, which I don't exactly understand outside of humanitarian aid, but even then one shouldn't feel the need to strongly signal his virtuous behavior - any good you do in any situation will be repaid by God himself, that's for sure.

To make matters little more complicated, this war is still not only about NATO, it's also about gas that locates in Ukraine, so money is after all the culprit here, but I still believe this conflict was avoidable for years if the west would have played things differently, for example by listening to countries like France and Germany.

...

WW2 started partly because of sanctioning Germany too harshly in my opinion, the scale is just debatable.

EDIT. grammar

 

[Geralt]

Meta crap will soon be completely blocked in Russia. They are saying this right now here.

 

[wiyosaya]

All the social media virtue signaling and sanctioning in the world isn't going to stop Russia from flattening Ukraine. We should be trying to normalize relations, not forcing weapons into NATO countries to surround them and threat We should be trying to bring them closer, not walling them off.

Sanctioning Germany brought WW2 on.

Sanctioning Russia is making prices skyrocket - for Americans - and chances are they knew it would.

Perhaps normalization would work if the only answer that Russia appears willing to accept is not the complete absorption and integration of the Ukraine into Russia. Given the resistance put up by Ukrainians, they do not appear to want that, and Russia seems not ready to accept that Ukrainians do not want to be part of the Russian empire.

I know you are into Babylon 5. Think of Putin as a much more demented Londo Mollari storming around and longing for the "glory days" of the old republic that have long since passed and no longer work in the modern universe.

EDIT: In addition, Russia seems to think that everyone else is to blame, and for some unknown reason, seems to think that prior to the conflict, they were under threat. IMO, that was completely irrational.

 

[emmzo]

All the social media virtue signaling and sanctioning in the world isn't going to stop Russia from flattening Ukraine. We should be trying to normalize relations, not forcing weapons into NATO countries to surround them and threat We should be trying to bring them closer, not walling them off.

Sanctioning Germany brought WW2 on.

Sanctioning Russia is making prices skyrocket - for Americans - and chances are they knew it would.

Putin wants his USSR back, so maybe we should give Russia half of Europe back, including East Germany, where he was an agent not to offend him. We should also bow to his genius and forget about his atrocities in order to normalize relations. I'm surprised you didn't call for NATO to disband, because it threatens Putin. I think it all makes sense when you claim WWII was brought by "sanctions" and not by a demented antisemite egomaniac trying to restore an empire.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Perhaps normalization would work if the only answer that Russia appears willing to accept is not the complete absorption and integration of the Ukraine into Russia. Given the resistance put up by Ukrainians, they do not appear to want that, and Russia seems not ready to accept that Ukrainians do not want to be part of the Russian empire.

I know you are into Babylon 5. Think of Putin as a much more demented Londo Mollari storming around and longing for the "glory days" of the old republic that have long since passed and no longer work in the modern universe.

That's a good analogy. I doubt the Centauri were designed to resemble the Russians - even though they appear as a dying imperialist culture.

I don't personally buy the propaganda against him that he's "trying to rebuild the Soviet Union".

I more believe he's trying to keep Russia safe from NATO aggression in the same way China creates buffer zones to keep America off its shores. I'd like to get his own answers to my questions to sidestep the corrupt Western Media.

 

[wiyosaya]

That's a good analogy. I doubt the Centauri were designed to resemble the Russians - even though they appear as a dying imperialist culture.

IMO, it really does not matter what culture, if any, they were designed to resemble. IMO, they simply represent a culture that has reached the end of its imperialist life, and refuse to accept it to the point where they are willing to try anything to bring it back.

I don't personally buy the propaganda against him that he's "trying to rebuild the Soviet Union".

I more believe he's trying to keep Russia safe from NATO aggression in the same way China creates buffer zones to keep America off its shores. I'd like to get his own answers to my questions to sidestep the corrupt Western Media.

And, even in the context you propose, you expect the truth from a member of an organization that built itself on lies, bullying, repression, and propaganda? So you believe that elections, since Putin took over in Russia, are actually real?

Even if there is a skewed view from Western Journalism, I believe there is truth in the fact that certain portions of the Russian population hate Putin and his KGB style iron-fist ruling. To me, it shows through in his actions, even if those actions are skewed or misrepresented, such as adorning himself with women and running around bare chested as if he has a body like Arnold Schwarzenegger. IMO, that's a guy clearly suffering from misogynistic delusions and testosterone poisoning.

EDIT: To me, those "I'm trying to defend the homeland against NATO" claims are pure paranoia. I don't think anyone wants war, and I also do not think NATO would willingly start a conflict with Russia unless there were a demented authoritarian as its head. However, NATO is not ruled by one single nation, and I believe that NATO was intended for defense, not aggression, and would not allow something like that to happen. There are too many separate states who would want no part in such a conflict unless they were openly under attack.

Perhaps if you want a less western skewed viewpoint, perhaps you should check out Al-Jazeera.