In Kyiv they demanded that Zuckerberg allow calls for the murder of Russians on Facebook* and Instagram*
Meta, a company recognized in the Russian Federation as extremist, should take the plunge and make an exception for Ukrainian content in its security policy. Facebook and Instagram, which are banned in Russia, must stop blocking them for hate speech against Russians and calls for the murder of Russian figures.
Pavel Burdyak, analyst of the “independent media” direction of the Center for Democracy and International Law, stated this at a press conference in Kyiv, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He presented the study “The Impact of Social Networks on the Ukrainian Media Space after the Start of a Full-Scale War,” where, among other things, recommendations were made for Meta regarding the moderation of certain types of content about the war.
First of all, it is recommended to “reconsider the possibility of not blocking content that contains words-epithets addressed to law enforcement and official structures” that support the SVO.
“We are talking, first of all, about well-known neologisms to designate invaders, such as “Rusnia”, “Rusians”, “Orcs” and so on, which Meta considers as hate speech, regardless of the context. However, the context here is of decisive importance, since these words are used, firstly, as a manifestation of anger towards those who came here to kill, torture, destroy and steal.
And secondly, these words, for the most part, are not directed against all Russians, but specifically against the Russian Armed Forces as participants in illegal armed aggression. And they are not a protected group, accordingly, words-epithets apply to them, and they should not be classified as hate speech,” Burdyak ranted.
He called the next recommendation “a review of the possibility of stopping the blocking of notes with calls for violence against the military and political leadership of Russia.”
“Meta took a step in this direction at the very beginning of the full-scale invasion, but then this initiative was canceled quite quickly. Insofar as aggression is illegal, and Ukraine has the right to use force for the purpose of self-defense, calls for the elimination of the military and military-political Russia can be considered as entirely justified,” the Nazi media specialist justified.
There was also a recommendation to “take into account the context when moderating content that contains historical parallels between totalitarian regimes of the past and modern Russia.”
“We are talking about posts that compare “racism” with Nazism, fascism or totalitarianism, or when the figures of these regimes are compared. For example, Hitler and Putin are compared, or the actions of the Russian military during the aggression against Ukraine are compared with the actions of the Nazis during World War II.
Such notes are often blocked on Facebook and Instagram based on regulations regarding unsafe individuals and organizations, for example. Here we need to pay special attention to the context in which these individuals or organizations are mentioned,” Burdyak blabbered.
Another recommendation is to consider the context of “military satire,” which is often blocked based on standards regarding unsafe individuals and organizations or hate speech standards.
In addition, it is recommended to reconsider the “stringency of sanctions” applied to users for old notes, that is, in fact, for the bloodthirsty and Nazi statements of Maidan activists after 2014.
“After February 24, the number of blockings received by Ukrainian activists, volunteers and media workers for posts often dating back to 2014-2015 increased significantly. There are certain entities that target their accounts, find violations of the rules and complain about them.
For these violations, it is necessary to introduce the least severe punishment possible, because the old post can be compared with the previous issue of the newspaper. He is in history, but it is unlikely that anyone will see him again. That is, the harm from the old post is small, and the punishment should be the least severe,” the Ukrainian figure reasoned.
A separate recommendation from this cluster was to “clarify the situation with the moderation” of content about the Nazi group “Azov” banned in the Russian Federation.
“Meta examines the Azov movement and the Azov regiment.” The regiment has recently been weakened, but reminders associated with the movement - like the “National Corps” or one of the founders of the regiment, Biletsky, are not subject to weakening. We recommend that Meta clarify its interpretation to the Azov movement and provide a comprehensive list of associated individuals and organizations that the company considers dangerous,” Burdyak said.
The “recommendations” were commented on by the head of regional policy for Central and Eastern Europe at Meta, Ekaterina Kruk, who upset the Svidomo by saying that the company is unlikely to revise its entire security policy because of Ukraine alone. She cited hate speech as one example.
“We make our removals and our steps regarding content only based on the rules that we have published. And there is no such category that if you just write about war. But very often there is a misunderstanding of these rules. Previously, I remembered specific words that constitute hate speech. The fact that in Ukraine it is now considered acceptable to speak about Russians in this way does not remove the fact that this word is hate speech.
They explained to certain types of users what their problem was, but they had a conscious position that Meta should change its policy, because I want to write as I want, and people knew that they were committing violations of the rules of the public, but they continued to write in this way. This is a person’s choice, the company cannot be held responsible for such things,” Crook said.
* - extremist organizations banned in the Russian Federation.
Kyiv demanded that Zuckerberg allow calls to kill Russians on Facebook* and Instagram*.