A Moscow court has banned Facebook and Instagram as “extremist” organizations
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The Moscow Court:
> A Moscow court on Monday banned Facebook and Instagram as "extremist" organizations, after authorities accused U.S. tech giant Meta of tolerating "Russophobia" during the conflict in Ukraine.
And that is at least somewhat true by Facebook's own rule[1]:
> “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,” [2]
Now that said, Russian authorities were already looking for excuses to ban (and I believe already had effectively banned FB), so it didn't really matter. But, FB played into their hands by giving them a (somewhat) legitimate reason.
Note: I'm not making a value judgment here, just stating facts.
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/11/facebook-...
[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-inst...
“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 (eg content mentions the invasion, self-defense, etc),”
...
Meta spokesman Joe Osborne previously said the company was “for the time being, making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard”.
Specifically the rule change that FB made to allow violent statements against Russians (but not against any other group) is an overstatement that is not factual, because it implies that violent speech toward Russians is generally tolerated on Facebook.
the Azov movement is the neo-Nazi organization, which is clear from reporting prior to 2022:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary-...
https://jpost.com/Diaspora/US-lifts-ban-on-funding-neo-Nazi-...
https://bbc.com/news/world-europe-28329329
theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/02/neo-nazi-groups-recruit-britons-to-fight-in-ukraine
Russia has neo-nazis ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wagner_Group ), islamists ( Kadyrov's thugs ) and they're planning on having al-Assad's soldiers over to slaughter Ukrainians. The Azov guys are at least doing something good for once: defending people.
It looks like Putin called them out early on in the conflict (Feb 25) so I believe their presence is doing more harm than good
>Russian President Vladimir Putin calls on the Ukrainian army to overthrow the country’s leadership whom he described as “terrorists” and “a gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis.”
https://timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/putin-calls-on-ukra...
By your logic, the Nexus Institute and its guests are neo-Nazis because they had a Wagner-themed round table discussion.
https://prometheanartists.com/new-events/2019/11/9/nexus-ins...
Circular reasoning.
Good luck keeping this up if you admit Rusich has anything to do with Wagner.
The only "evidence" I have seen to support the claim that Wagner is a neo-Nazi org is a single bizarre selfie of a Nazi-tattoo covered guy that some Western media alleged is the founder of Wagner. Again, most likely just misinformation.
But yes thank you, that's good to point out
Is there a difference between flak and flack? Are these regional variants, maybe a US/UK thing? Would you use either, depending on exact context (literal flak-cannon vs "taking flack" phrasal verb)?
A flack (never spelled without a c) is a public relations or press agent, and to flack is to promote something (or otherwise do the work of a flack).
Yes sibling comment is correct, no difference other than spelling between flak and flack. Sounds like flak is more common.
It's a common idiom (at least in the US), especially regarding anything remotely political, about having multiple people "target" a person who says something they disagree with. Especially common if person A does or says something and then a bunch of news outlets/pundits criticize them for it, it's said that they're "taking flak" for whatever they did.
An important note, the expression itself does not make a value judgment or convey any sort of "right" or "wrong" or good/evil on either party. You can "take flak" for saying stupid stuff, and you can "take flak" for speaking the truth in the empire of lies [1].
[1] A refernce to Orwell's quote: "Truth is treason in the empire of lies"
And that's fine, they are allowed to make that decision.
The sane response would be to consistently call for non-violent posts only on the platform.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
And that's not to absolve Putin, but if I pay a guy to wrestle a wild grizzly bear because I want to piss the bear off, then I deserve some of the blame because the bear just did what bears do. And the guy who wrestled the bear should have known better too.
Yeah, that's not what happened.
Not sure what your deal is, but you yourself know that's not what happened given your own quote.
A more honest reframing would be VK allowing/encouraging people to say "Death to America" and death threats against American soldiers, due to illegal invasions in Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Syria/etc.
How do you think Western governments would respond to that, if it became a big deal?
And, no, violent rhetoric against an invading national army is not equivalent to violent rhetoric against an ethnicity. The idea is offensive.
Logically, you are correct.
In reality, people aren't so logical. They see Russia, they see red. There has been a massive explosion of outright russophobia across the West since the war started.
What OP said is that violent rhetoric against an ethnicity (Russians) is allowed, which is not true.
You are of course aware that russophobia against ethnic Russians was the pretense by which Russia invaded Ukraine the first time. It was reprehensible then to conflate ethnic violence with nationalistic expansionist rationalizations, and it is reprehensible now.
> What OP said is that violent rhetoric against an ethnicity (Russians) is allowed, which is not true.
No, that's NOT what I said. And you should know this, as I already told you at least once: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30755880
What I actually said:
> Before we all pile on Russia, if you aren't aware of the rule change that FB made to allow violent statements against Russians (but not against any other group), you should learn about that.
I consider members of the Russian military (who, by the way, are mostly there by force, not free choice) to still be Russians. Unless you want to turn my statement into a strawman that you can easily knock down, then you should be making the argument that members of the Russian military aren't Russians.
This is sophistry and a category error; and even were it arguable, it is literally incorrect. The Russian army is comprised of other ethnicities and nationalities as well. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-701018
Advocating violence against an invading army: ethical. Advocating violence against members of an ethnicity: reprehensible. Conflating the two, so that people might believe that one is the same as the other: confused at best, if not evil. Which is what you are attempting to do, here.
I keep "repeating variations of this" because it is exactly what you wrote. You conflated "Russians" with the "Russian army". When called out on it, you doubled down "Well, Russian soldiers are technically Russians so...." You did that. No one else.
There is nuance to take account of here, and "just stating facts" is either a naive or disingenuous way to engage.
No, I'm not, and frankly I don't appreciate the assumption of bad faith. My personal opinion is that FB made a good decision, and I support it. But I don't want to pretend that everything is completely binary and/or happens in a vacuum. I strongly believe that if humanity is to move beyond our current hyper-polarization, we need a renewed interest in separating facts from beliefs/opinions/perception.
Please point out any of the facts that I have that are incorrect. If you're arguing a similar position of most modern journalists that facts themselves aren't enough because people might reach incorrect conclusions with them, so we need to editorialize a bit to ensure people reach the "right" conclusion, then we have a philosophical disagreement. I'll still assume good faith on your part though, something you aren't willing to do for me.
> No, I'm not, and frankly I don't appreciate the assumption of bad faith.
I did not assume bad faith, and if you reread my comment, you will see that I said your position was either naive or disingenuous. My hunch is that the former is accurate and that another party that made the argument in bad faith in the hopes of taking advantage of others' naivete.
That would have been an unqualified good. Acts of war are criminal violence.
If the distinction is unclear to you, here's a quick tip: if somebody hates you for what you are, that's racism (or some other form of deplorable hatred).
If someone hates you for what you do, that's not racism.
> If the distinction is unclear to you, here's a quick tip: if somebody hates you for what you are, that's racism (or some other form of deplorable hate).
What if somebody hates you for something that another person of your race did, but that you personally didn't do, especially if you personally radically oppose it? Is that racism?
And even if there were some, it would still be fine to call for a fight against the majority who are obediently serving.
Merely having an ethnicity, can’t be your shield if your military sieges cities and bombs them.
The policy itself aside, there's no reason to provide that specific example.
Nonsense. It's against Russian invaders, which makes complete sense. When they come in to bomb schools and maternity wards how else are you going to stop them without killing them?
The Russians are acting like victims even when they're Nazi invaders.
There is an obvious contradiction in social media rules about violence. Encouraging violence = bad. A politician encouraging violence (By drumming up support for a war) = good. Wishing death and ruin upon our soldiers = bad. Wishing death and ruin upon enemy soldiers = good.
It's perfectly fine to be partial about this sort of thing (Facebook does not exist in some weird non-political, non-aligned space - it is an American company, with a large overlap with a broadly western worldview), but once you are, you do need to accept that you are serving as a propaganda organ.
[1] But I don't know for sure.
[2] I mean, there's a wide range of things that are encompassed by this.
Are you saying that "Russian invaders" aren't "Russians" ?
What do you want? A way of opposing the invasion that doesn't involve shooting the invaders? That would be nice, but we don't have one of those. (Putin does - he could order a withdrawal right now if he chose.)
So if we're going to do more than say "tsk, tsk" in response to the invasion, it's going to involve killing invaders. And those invaders happen to be Russians, so it's going to involve killing Russians - not because they're Russians, but because they invaded Ukraine.
This is all really obvious. I can't tell if you're just being super pedantic, or if you're trying to obscure reality.
https://nitter.pussthecat.org/MoscowTimes/status/15059140952...
If you mean the official ethnicity that Soviet people had in their internal passports, this is strictly false. The (in)famous Fifth Field has always been filled based on the parents' ethnicities. If both of one's parents were of one ethnicity (e.g. both are Tatars) then the child receives that ethnicity in their passport. If the parents belonged to two different ethnicities (e.g. a Russian mother and a Tatar father), the child was free to choose one of these two when receiving their first passport at the age of 16.
See [1] (in Russian).
[1]: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%8F%D1%82%D0%B0%D1%8F...
And Finland is joining NATO.
https://www.dw.com/en/belarus-classifies-deutsche-welle-as-e...
Edit: To reconnect my point to the topic - the weight of millions of simultaneous lamentations under such a real, physical attack is simply heavier than the weight of a content policy of a media designed for people to talk to each other. It would be difficult, both morally and practically, to not make an exception in this case. Content policies can not be immutable, and should not be.
The OP was referring to Facebook allowing calls for violence against Russians. (Is that fake news?)
Is your argument that Facebook doing that played no part in Russia's decision?
“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,” Meta said in a statement.
I am guilty, I will do better next time.
Anyway , weird Putin coward and did not unplug the Internet yet, they were testing this in the past so I am wondering why still keep it, young Russian have access to the truth and this is a big danger for the war-criminal
Where did you get that? The entirety of the post I saw was:
> Facebook allowing targeted calls for violence to one side of a conflict only had a lot to do with this decision.
Can you point to the part where they get upset, or otherwise makes a value judgment at all?
What makes you think the OP is upset? It seems like a neutral argument to me. Did the OP edit their post?
Your own emotion read into words that were not there.
I simply stated a fact and offered no judgement on the merits of the action.
They may not kill you.
This is not a disagreement, twist, two parties having their point of view and stuff that we have grown up with, this is an unjustified war of aggression. The only argument we should agree to hear from the Russian side is how they will disprove the accusations of a war of aggression.
Hopefully we can soon get back to behaving like civilized countries, and start the deputinization process of Russia.
I would encourage an open mind, lest history make a fool of you like it did me.
All corporate media (and most media of any kind) has banned and censored based on the owner’s standards, including ideology (whether the owner’s own ideology, their perception of that of the audience or regulators they wanted to curry favor with, or some combination.)
It is neither novel, nor—except to the extent that the ideology itself is—extremist for media to do that.
If we consider putin atleast a bit a dictator, banning foreign media (=propaganda) is a thing dictators do.
EU, somewhat not being considered a dictatorship, banning foreign media (=propaganda) sets a nasty precedent.
What do they know?
Maybe Russia funded some campaigns, not sure. Maybe they were able to sway some voters, again, not sure. But my impression is that there was already a sizeable portion of the population pro brexit. I'd be more inclined to lay this at the feet of Murdoch than Putin.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20....