Facebook ADVOCATES violence against Russians on its sites [Video]

Reuters and correspondingly, Sputnik News report that META, the company that comprises Facebook and other social media and Augmented Reality “services” is openly advocating for violence against Russians, at least against Russian leadership. Here is how Sputnik News reports the story

[META, t]he media giant has been at the center of controversy regarding its policies on political ads and political bias in general, but such a move could be deemed the most outrageous one yet.

Meta has made a temporary change to its hate speech policy to allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russian people and Russian soldiers, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in a statement via Twitter.

Using the Russian special operation in Ukraine as a justification for the move, Meta described racist speech against Russian-speaking people as “forms of political expression,” vowing to continue to prevent “credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”

“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 reportedly said in a statement.

Apart from greenlighting hate speech in certain countries, Meta will also allow posts “that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko,” Reuters reported, citing internal company emails.

Calls for violence against Russian soldiers will be considered permissible by the company, but not against prisoners of war, the report said.

The change reportedly applies to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.

In another inexplicable move, corporate emails also showed that praising Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Azov battalion will also be considered “okay,” according to The Intercept.

The Azov Regiment, founded by white supremacists, is now a unit of the National Guard of Ukraine (NGU) that has enjoyed cooperation with Washington as a tool to propel radical forces in Ukraine against Russia, investigative journalists have found. Its members have engaged in hostilities against the people of Donbas in Eastern Ukraine, and in 2016, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) officially accused them of war crimes, including kidnapping, torture and mass looting. Azov has been one of the primary tools used by Kiev in its crackdown against anti-Maidan protesters.

The Azov Battalion recently triggered outrage after its members were captured greasing bullets with pork fat, for use against Muslim (Chechen) soldiers, in a video shared by Ukraine’s National Guard on Twitter. The footage, in which they referred to Chechen soldiers as “Kadyrov orcs,” was ultimately deleted, but not by Twitter: the platform attached a label to it, saying, “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about hateful conduct. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

Sputnik News’s take is not just “Russian propaganda spin.” Here is Reuters’ own report, reprinted in full:

[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.

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.

“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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKIGLp7sYeg

I wish to interrupt the quoted piece to make an observation: Big Tech is literally managing and directing what, how and when public opinion should be expressed. What is really amazing is how the Reuters piece just passes that little factoid of mind- and thought- and opinion control right over.

Nothing to see here, guys. Right.

Wrong. Let’s continue with the Reuters piece:

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.

Citing the Reuters story, Russia’s embassy in the United States demanded that Washington 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 said on Twitter in a message that was also shared by their India office.

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.

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.

We interrupt again. Look at this phrase “T1 violent speech” – this is actually classified in Meta’s language. I looked for a definition for T1 violent speech but was unable to find one. One wonders what T2 and T3, etc. might be.

What a reveal this news is!

“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.

Last week, Russia said it was banning Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform. Moscow has cracked down on tech companies, including Twitter, which said it is restricted in the country, during its invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a “special operation.”

Many major social media platforms have announced new content restrictions around the conflict, including blocking Russian state media RT and Sputnik in the European Union, and have demonstrated carve-outs in some of their policies during the war.

Emails also showed that Meta would allow praise of the right-wing Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited, in a change first reported by The Intercept.

The Meta spokesperson 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.”

Well, that is the latest propaganda effort from the West. It should be noted that here in Russia, there has not been a peep of hate speech against anyone in Ukraine during the course of this war – not even the Azov people, though their identification as neo-Nazis is certainly something Russians make no bones about saying… because the Azov Battalion are neo-Nazis.

Truth or lies. Your choice. And this piece is far, far bigger than it may seem. More to come.