Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

https://www.reuters.com/world/kremlin-says-meta-would-have-cease-work-russia-if-reuters-report-is-true-2022-03-11/

by LittleMoveBig • 4 years ago

198 303 4 years ago

reuters.com

lalaland11255• 4 years ago

Didn't Russia already ban Facebook? What's the point of this legal game?

fmakunbound• 4 years ago

You don’t have to be on Facebook to live in a world affected by it unfortunately

danielktdoranie3• 4 years ago

Correct. Ask any kid bullied by classmates in private groups. FWIW one of the best things I ever did was delete my Facebook account.

ramesh31• 4 years ago

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.

kurthr3• 4 years ago

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.

gambler2• 4 years ago

Sow doubt, maintain deniability, gaslight, deflect, and project.

"Russian restaurant owners in the U.S. say they face harassment over Ukraine war"

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-russia-restaurants-puti...

"Russian businesses in U.S. face threats, vandalism over invasion"

https://www.axios.com/russian-businesses-us-vandalism-threat...

Social media plays a role here.

cjbgkagh3• 4 years ago

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.

TestSIM13• 4 years ago

Here in Russia it's a total clusterfuck at this point.

1) Roscomnadzor bans Twitter in Russia.

2) Russian embassy posts on Twitter claiming Mariupol hospital bombing was faked.

It's like:

Should we ban Twitter in Russia? Yes.

Should we keep posting Russian propaganda on Twitter? Also yes.

duxup• 4 years ago

Well they want to reach the outside world so yeah they use Twitter and etc.

lalaland11255• 4 years ago

Should we keep posting Russian proganda on Twitter? Also yes.

Well, that propaganda is for foreign audiences.

This is 100% consistent. You can believe the game is rigged, but still be forced to play.

danielktdoranie3• 4 years ago

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.

listless2• 4 years ago

Is banning effective? Can’t you just hop on a VPN and be done with it? Do they block that too?

tablespoon• 4 years ago

It's like:
Should we ban Twitter in Russia? Yes.
Should we keep posting Russian propaganda on Twitter? Also yes.

That's entirely consistent. It just means (from their perspective) Twitter is for externally-facing propaganda.

IIRC, nationalist Chinese diplomats, the Global Times editor, etc. are all active on Twitter for the same reason.

pyronik193• 4 years ago

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.

croes• 4 years ago

1) ban for russian citizens 2) no ban for russian authorities.

Simple as that.

1 is for in, 2 is for out

mensetmanusman3• 4 years ago

What would happen if Twitter banned Russia in response to being banned…

Good or bad decision?

pessimizer3• 4 years ago

This is normal. The US maintains multiple radio stations (for going on 75 years) that do not broadcast in the US. They often broadcast stuff that Americans would be shocked to hear, like: https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/u-s-government-broadcaster-a...

I think the reason historically here is that there is a prohibition on the CIA disseminating propaganda in the US, IIRC.

CyanBird• 4 years ago

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

thriftwy• 4 years ago

Meta also has Instagram.

lysp• 4 years ago

They just banned Instagram in the past hour or so too.

denistaran• 4 years ago

Yes, they banned Facebook, but some services like WhatsApp are still working. Now they want to ban every service provided by Meta.

daenz• 4 years ago

The next Modern Warfare game is going to be very different than it's FPS predecessors.

listless2• 4 years ago

Underrated observation here

bananabiscuit2• 4 years ago

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.

ensan• 4 years ago

“The old-fashioned racism didn’t cut it for me anymore. Excited to be racist towards a new group of people”

aasasd4• 4 years ago

Hollywood will again strike back at Russians by mangling their names and putting up jumble of Cyrillic instead of a single actual Russian word.

Lshtshfum Ashchf will again outmaneuver the baddies and turn out to be the American Universal Hero: Jason Bond by day, Iron Batman by night.

revicon• 4 years ago

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.

aasasd4• 4 years ago

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.

sidibe• 4 years ago

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

JumpCrisscross2• 4 years ago

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.)

future-garten2• 4 years ago

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...

mensetmanusman3• 4 years ago

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.

xdennis5• 4 years ago

The Russians are the ones with a white armband and use vehicles with a white Z on them.

The Ukrainians are the ones with a yellow armband and use vehicles with a blue/yellow flag.

How their faces look and what language they speak has nothing to do with it.

danielktdoranie3• 4 years ago

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.

jdrc• 4 years ago

Vk is full of pirated porn movies, it s the one thing they won't miss

kspacewalk2• 4 years ago

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.

slig• 4 years ago

No Coca-Cola and McDonalds either.

gambler2• 4 years ago

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.

JaimeThompson• 4 years ago

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.

mancerayder2• 4 years ago

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.

MisterBastahrd4• 4 years ago

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.

ProAm2• 4 years ago

The problem is Facebook has never had principles beyond market share and ads, we can be honest about that one.

djbusby• 4 years ago

And that's not something the "new generation" came up with.

DaiPlusPlus• 4 years ago

Facebook has never had principles

"Never" doesn't feel right to me.

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?

davidgay• 4 years ago

I'll grant you elections, but changing rules for century-defining events like the pandemic or the Ukraine war seems very normal to me.

In a parallel and far more impactful setting, laws are changed far more often and for far lesser reasons.

8note10• 4 years ago

Ukraine doesn't seem century defining?

It's following the Iraqi example. Big countries can do what they want to small countries without pushback. The Iraq war is century defining

monklu3• 4 years ago

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.

zozbot2343• 4 years ago

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.

PhantomBKB3• 4 years ago

They should have kept it quiet in any case. The rhetoric hurts them either way.

moltke3• 4 years ago

These "Western Principles" are primarily what separate us from Russia. Without those who cares which government we live under?

rajin4442• 4 years ago

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.

apologiesalso2• 4 years ago

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.

aerovistae• 4 years ago

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.

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20210308014253/https://likewise.a...

Note - the author is an intermittent HN user, abalashov.

saurik• 4 years ago

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.

beaconstudios• 4 years ago

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.

NicoJuicy• 4 years ago

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.

There's a very BIG difference.

jasonm232• 4 years ago

Btw wrt "sleuth of Ukrainian accounts", I think you meant slew.

belter• 4 years ago

Facebook is just being truthful to what always was their guiding principle, drive engagement, and make money out of it.

jfengel2• 4 years ago

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.

nradov3• 4 years ago

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?

StreamBright• 4 years ago

I think we used to have principles. Not anymore. Only rules for special class of events or people.

nindalf4• 4 years ago

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.

KerrAvon2• 4 years ago

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.

themgt• 4 years ago

"Completely objective and fair rules are impossible, so Calvinball it is" is not a credible stance.

Facebook's big recent decisions have been:

* posting news articles about Hunter Biden's laptop: banned

* posting about possible Covid lab leak: banned

* calling for death of Russians: thumbs up

* praising Azov neo-Nazis: thumbs up

Their consistent and comprehensive principle is just serving TPTB. Let's not dress it up beyond that.

stuckinhell• 4 years ago

“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

justapassenger2• 4 years ago

If you don't change as the world around you is changing, then there's something profoundly wrong with you.

azinman2• 4 years ago

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.

qiskit4• 4 years ago

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.

cyanydeez• 4 years ago

Sounds more like it's a macro cosm of society.

We change our rules for catastrophic events, always.

jasonm232• 4 years ago

Does anyone honestly believe Mark Zuckerberg has principles?

He's never demonstrated this in any way shape or form.

tonetheman• 4 years ago

I mean Facebook/Meta did not care that they helped genocide in Myanmar

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...

I cannot imagine they will care about Russia either.

mensetmanusman3• 4 years ago

Failure to act.

justsomehnguy• 4 years ago

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.

JumpCrisscross2• 4 years ago

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.

ClumsyPilot3• 4 years ago

'Consistency isn’t the paramount principle in a moral system.'

I think the argument is different- if your moral system contradicts itself logically, it's likely it's hypocritical or self-serving

aiProgMach3• 4 years ago

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.

Daniel_sk• 4 years ago

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.

aiProgMach3• 4 years ago

Not sure I got your point but Ok. Anyway, assuming that you're either with Russia or with "us" proves my point actually.

qiskit4• 4 years ago

At least they left. We are still occupying germany, korea, japan, etc. Even worse, we are looking to expand into poland, lithuania, etc.

blobbers• 4 years ago

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.

tus666• 4 years ago

Are facebook employees literally like targets for death now worldwide? Can Russians just go around killing them with impunity?

infamouscow• 4 years ago

It's called war.

deworms• 4 years ago

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.

8note10• 4 years ago

I assume the Russian army still forces Russian Jews to the front of the firing line

sirmike_• 4 years ago

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.

holoduke• 4 years ago

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.

xdennis5• 4 years ago

I am opposing everything related promoting violence.

You can't fight off an invasion with flowers and nice words.

rixed2• 4 years ago

I think you missed the point.

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 ?

sAbakumoff3• 4 years ago

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.

twelve403• 4 years ago

this is false https://www.kp.ru/daily/27375.5/4557218/

asteroidbelt• 4 years ago

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.

sAbakumoff3• 4 years ago

That moment when one refers to fcking KP to prove that something is false. LMAO

I hope that you are kidding. Otherwise, you are a joke.

msie• 4 years ago

"The committee reports directly to President Vladimir Putin."

Of course. It's so ridiculous at this point.

exdsq• 4 years ago

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.

realmod• 4 years ago

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.

jotm5• 4 years ago

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.

djohnston3• 4 years ago

Russia also legalized piracy against unfriendly countries, surely this investigation will lead to substantive outcomes!

aasasd4• 4 years ago

You might want to try finding sources for that. Other than neighbor HN comments. And differing from ‘a Duma member proposed that’.

djohnston3• 4 years ago

Same on the Meta statement which restricted the claim to actual combatants invading a sovereign territory.

Mountain_Skies• 4 years ago

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.

trhway7• 4 years ago

Tech companies are making themselves active participants in conflicts involving powerful countries.

sometimes there are situations when one can't be neutral. A genocidal war like the one Russia is waging in Ukraine is such a situation.

Sooner or later, one of those countries is going to reach out and strike back in the physical world.

Like Saudis did. So, it is a personal choice of everybody - whether to live by Russian/Saudi rules even when you're in US.

Ukraine people chose to not live by Russian rules and are being genocided for that.

HonestOp001• 4 years ago

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.

throwawayacc2• 4 years ago

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.

jotm5• 4 years ago

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.

Don't believe me, here's some proof: https://vot-tak.tv/novosti/04-10-2021-iznasilovaniya-v-kolon...

Gulagu.net got 40GB of this shit.

bckr• 4 years ago

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."

I don't think this could be simpler.

The Russian war in Ukraine is genocidal.

[1] https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

ComradePhil• 4 years ago

A genocidal war like the one Russia is waging in Ukraine is such a situation.

There is genocidal war in Ukraine that has been going on for decades. Look up the Minsk agreements... or how the Roma people or any other minority groups have been treated in Ukraine: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/europe-and-central-asia/...

jotm5• 4 years ago

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.

ModernMech3• 4 years ago

Are there still Facebook employees or contractors in Russia? They could be arrested and sent to labor camps.

tomjen3• 4 years ago

Russia lunched an attack with chemical weapons on U.K. soil and nothing happened.

bhuber• 4 years ago

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.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexander_Litvine...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Skripal

justapassenger2• 4 years ago

Tech companies are making themselves active participants in conflicts involving powerful countries

Same can be said about media companies, banks, car manufacturers, luxury brands, fast foods, etc.

ajross• 4 years ago

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.

archibaldJ• 4 years ago

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

jjtheblunt2• 4 years ago

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.

trasz5• 4 years ago

Vast majority of those millions fully support Putin.

jjtheblunt2• 4 years ago

i think it was recently measured at roughly 2/3, and a breakdown of the measurement showed it was people without internet news access predominately.

it's an interesting situation for sure.

meatsauce• 4 years ago

Organized embezzling

Crime

Corruption

These words summarize the Ukraine in the same manner.

aasasd4• 4 years ago

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.)

Giorgi• 4 years ago

Russia is a bunch of clowns at this point. Complete circus country.

ironcurtain• 4 years ago

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.

muzika• 4 years ago

By this action, Facebook effectively “called” its users to call for violence.

Very bad idea.

Wowfunhappy• 4 years ago

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?

hiyer• 4 years ago

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.

chimpansteve• 4 years ago

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

lifeplusplus• 4 years ago

USA banned Huawei so not really different

voidr• 4 years ago

I guess I should now assume that Facebook endorses everyone else who aren't in this policy, examples: The Taliban, ISIS, Al-Qaeda, North Korea etc.

Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

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