Facebook Says Hate-posting Welcome, Allows Posts Urging Violence Against Russians
Inciting tribal hatred is our values and who we are
Do you want to know the only thing worse than hate speech?
Being unable to talk about your hatred of Russians on Facebook. That is the real hate.
Thankfully, the evil rule blocking Russia-hate has been changed so it’s once again safe to make posts about how much you want Russian people to die.
March 10 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (FB.O) will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.
I’m confused. Why is this only a temporary change?
Are you telling me that Russians will stop being existentially evil after NATO and the Ukrainian army destroy them? The whole race is existentially evil.
And what is it with relaxing these rules only in certain countries? Isn’t it obvious to people in all nations how much Russians deserve to die? Shouldn’t access to hate-posting be a universal human right?
The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators.
Temporarily? Weird flex.
Maybe Facebook is saying that the rule allowing users to call for the death of Putin or Lukashenko will only be relevant until they are actually assassinated. So it’s announcing this now as a way to help bring about a consummation devoutly to be wished. But once the evil guys are dead, what would be the point of still allowing the fedposting?
I think they’re saying it would be disrespectful to the dead to keep calling for more violence against corpses, which I think is understandable. Necrophobia is not a core democracy value.
"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.
At first I was like, “Why can’t I post making calls for violence against Russian civilians?!?” But then I reread it and I was like, “Ok, got it, you are actually specifically allowing for speech that calls for death to the Russian invaders. That is actually pretty cool, ok, cool.”
The calls for the leaders' deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company's rules on violence and incitement.
This thing of limiting the death-calls to just Putin or Lukashenko also makes sense. It’s called message discipline. Facebook wants to help people keep their hatred focused instead of letting it spew out in an amorphous scattershot way. You know how the spree shooters are sometimes so inefficient and their total carnage winds up detracting from a just cause? (Optics cucks might pull away man!)
But it’d be so much more effective if they went sniper on a ringleader, ok? That’s the idea here.
Citing the Reuters story, Russia's embassy in the United States demanded that Washington stop the "extremist activities" of Meta.
Ah yes, those famous Russian scruples! Naturally, the Russian embassy came out with embarrassing disinfo calling Facebook’s new fedposting policy “extremist”. How is encouraging fedposting extreme? Is it any more extreme than invading a country full of US-backed biowarfare labs just because you think they’ll use those weapons against you?
Serious pot-meet-kettle stuff Mr. Russian Ambassador!
"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 said on Twitter in a message that was also shared by their India office.
Oh but they did Mr. Embassy. It’s been long-established that Facebook and Instagram are indeed the determiners of all truth, and of what kinds of violence will or will not be encouraged and allowed on their platforms. It’s called Democracy Values, and it is who we are. And Mr. Embassy? If you don’t like it, you ought to cancel Facebook in your home country.
Oh wait, what?
Yes, Russia is doing that. They actually are moving to have Facebook declared an extremist organization and they have already blocked Instagram.
This is shocking frankly.
Why would Russia not want its citizens to be able to read incitements of violence against its President and its military? Why are then blocking free speech in Russia? What is Putin hiding? Why is it bad to use the convenience of social media to spread violent ideas against yourself among your own citizenry? Getting citizens to hate and attack their government, while also embracing the wonders of increasing gay rights, is what democracy truly is all about!
The temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, according to one email.
This list of countries where you are allowed to call for violence against Russian soldiers is a pretty good start. But let’s be honest. That is only 12 countries! And it’s frankly centered on just countries located in and around Russia and Eastern Europe. Isn’t that a bit Eurocentric in scope? After all, people all over the world have a lot of reasons to want Putin dead.
What about all of the people he enslaved in Africa? Why should Facebook posters in Djibouti be prevented from calling for his death at a time like this?
What about the Indigenous Populations of Canada? Haven’t they suffered enough from Putin’s vodka pouring into their land to justify a temporary lifting of the ban on hate posting? Or the Mexican toddlers who were thrust into cages by Putin? Why is their suffering less legitimate than that of Gay Rights Crusaders in the Ukraine?
To me they’re ALL legitimate. They ALL deserve the opportunity to call for Putin’s head on a platter openly on Facebook.
Ms. Sandberg: Make this happen!
In the email recently sent to moderators, Meta highlighted a change in its hate speech policy pertaining both to Russian soldiers and to Russians in the context of the invasion.
"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.)," it said in the email.
Yes. Context is key. Willy-nilly violence is obviously bad (for now), so it’s vital to understand that we are only talking about the virtue of describing a desire to harm and kill Russian soldiers (but not POWs) and only in the context of the Ukraine invasion.
That is democracy in action. How can we have democracy without the freedom of every citizen to call for the assassination of foreign leaders and military enemies? Nobody would EVER use these newly relaxed rules to incite violence against normal civilians because Facebook users are too intelligent to ignore rules or let their emotions get away with them.
You want to know another thing that would never happen? Facebook would never allow its ability to boost certain content, or derank or ban others, to influence people’s behavior. Why would they do that? They’re too moral to tamper with the stability and peace of nations and cultures!
All they’re doing is gently nudging people toward doing the right thing, which is to bring about the defeat of Russia and the defense of gay rights forever in the Ukraine!
"We are doing this because we have observed that in this specific context, 'Russian soldiers' is being used as a proxy for the Russian military. The Hate Speech policy continues to prohibit attacks on Russians," the email stated.
Translation: we are doing this because hating the Russian military is universally good. Total war means total war, and when you are trying to exterminate evil you have to be totally on board. The existential evil of the Russians is self-evident, and transcends quaint ideas about hate speech. If people do the wrong thing, on the wrong side of history, there are always consequences.
Allowing them to hide from those consequences behind last year’s outmoded hate-speech laws simply isn’t WHO WE ARE.
And who are we? We are:
· Anti-Russian
· Defenders of Gay Rights
· People who remember Russia’s crucial role in electing Adolf Trump in 2016
· People who remember how Adolf Trump played footsie with Adolf Putin throughout the past 5 years
· People who don’t mind the new discoveries about US-State-Department-backed biowarfare labs in the Ukraine, or its implications for international law
· People who believe everything we’re told in the media about the inevitable victory of the woefully outnumbered Ukrainian military
· People who aren’t remotely bothered by the past eight years of shelling against the inhabitants of eastern Ukraine by Zelensky and his predecessors
· People who are oblivious to the Ukrainian policy throughout March of stationing soldiers in civilian residential areas to obtain human shields against Russian fire
That’s called Democracy Values. Don’t like them? Go move to Russia! And enjoy not using Facebook there. You may like the vodka, but I don’t know what you’ll think of the culture.
That much "bi-partisan support" is a huge red flag. Excellent post!