Facebook, like other Big Tech monopolies, keeps pretending that it has some sort of objective rules that apply equally and fairly, and then keeps demonstrating that its only rules are political. Here’s the latest absurd double standard with lots of political pandering rolled into the mix.
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.
I don’t actually object to this because war propaganda is hardly hate speech and if you’re at war with another country, calling for the death of its leaders and soldiers is a perfectly legitimate form of speech.
Except Facebook doesn’t think so 99% of the time.
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.
So Americans still can’t do it?
I could parse this some more but the bottom line is that Facebook made this rule change because the Ukrainian side is politically popular which translates into being exempt from normal rules.
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.”
It’s okay to support Nazis as long as temporarily they’re on the right side.
If the rationalizations here were any more convoluted, they’d be actual code.
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