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Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

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321–330 of 373 posts

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#321
post #82
post #40

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.

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 ima…

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.

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#322
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon me, but isn't that exactly what they're doing? > "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.

"Death to the Russian invaders" is nationalistic propaganda of the sort that Putin likes to point to when he calls Ukrainians "nazis". It's not a sensible call to engage in self-defense. For one thing, it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians, of whom there are plenty in Ukraine (Russian even used to be an official language before the Ukraine government removed it as retaliation against the Crimea r…

> it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians,

> "Death to the Russian invaders"

"Invaders" is the properly distinguishing keyword here. So, that makes your comment conflicted.

That doesn't negate the fact a non-corporal entity is making big decisions for groups of people, while also holding their shareholder's value (another group of people) in mind.

One way to break conflicted or dissonant views is to ask direct questions about the conflicted statements. Where others have done that, you appear to have evaded answering the question.

> Do we really need to ask that question?

Yes, we really do!

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Death to the Russian invaders" is nationalistic propaganda of the sort that Putin likes to point to when he calls Ukrainians "nazis". It's not a sensible call to engage in self-defense. For one thing, it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians, of whom there are plenty in Ukraine (Russian even used to be an official language before the Ukraine government removed it as retaliation against the Crimea r…

> it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians, > "Death to the Russian invaders" "Invaders" is the properly distinguishing keyword here. So, that makes your comment conflicted . That doesn't negate the fact a non-corporal entity is making big decisions for groups of people, while also holding their shareholder's value (another group of people) in mind. One way to break conflicted or dissonant views is…

When do we get to say "death to Mexican gangsters?"

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#324
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ima…

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 al…

Personally I feel at least as unsettled about selective enforcement of rules (allowing some rule-violators to avoid getting caught or go unpunished once found out), or punishments or retaliation outside of rules, as harmful consequences of fully enforcing rules which are difficult to make "just" in all cases. Is there a better solution?

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#325
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it does not properly distinguish between ordinary Russians, > "Death to the Russian invaders" "Invaders" is the properly distinguishing keyword here. So, that makes your comment conflicted . That doesn't negate the fact a non-corporal entity is making big decisions for groups of people, while also holding their shareholder's value (another group of people) in mind. One way to break conflicted or dissonant views is…

When do we get to say "death to Mexican gangsters?"

You don't. Invaders implies armed occupying forces causing harm. "Invaders" is a more clear identifier than "gangster", given some gangsters may only sell drugs, not carry guns or use them to inflict direct harm.

Of course one could argue selling drugs is causing harm, but choice of ingestion of the drug is a distinct and challenging topic in and of its own. Also, the two can't be conflated (well) and the origin of the story was Facebook doing X, where X isn't equal to drugs.

I'm also thinking that enforcement against selling drugs is a governmental view, not a societal view. So, a group representing the larger group thinks "drugs are bad", whereas the larger group doesn't hold that consensus based view. It's the group speaking for the larger group holding that view.

In the case of Facebook's action, Facebook is deciding whether or not the larger group can use certain terminology, or not. Facebook is not deciding whether to address the "occupying forces" themselves, through direct action, like a government would do for the larger group.

Maybe Facebook is like a bunch of Mexican gangsters, though!

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#326
post #296
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear powers have been involved in wars since 2004. There's no reason to think that the US would not use nukes if war stopped going in their favour

India and Pakistan have nukes and shoot at each other and occasionally have KIAs though not technically at war, the rhetoric between the different parties does get violent.

I don't think any of these skirmishes have ever come close to an existential threat to either party. If things ever come to that, I have little doubt that nukes would be used.

Principles, treaties, and ideals tend to go out the window when parties are backed in a corner with no alternative options.

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 p…

In the US, the 1st amendment grants private companies the right to police content within their purview. Preventing them from doing so is in itself a violation of the 1st amendment. Thus, in my opinion, the suggestion that private companies should NOT police content, despite their explicit 1st amendment right to do so, is antithetical to the 1st amendment.

So the 1st amendment's wrong. Fix it somehow. Landline telephone companies are obliged by their terms of licence to serve all customers in their coverage area (i.e they can't deny the KKK a landline.) There's precedent for forcing companies to provide a certain service. Just write a law. Find or invent a justification and write a law.

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#328
post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

"century defining" might be too much hyperbole given we've had two world wars in the last 103 years, but certainly from the perspective of Facebook, Covid and Ukraine have been perhaps the largest crises they've seen since over the course of their existence.

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You are claiming as a fact that regular Facebook users will be criminally prosecuted. What is _your_ source? Outside of pointless cussing and insults.

My source is the definition of an extremist organization. If you don't get that, you are ignorant. And based on what you cite KP(LMAO) you aren't just ignorant, you are delusional.

Re: Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook

#330
post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am opposing everything related promoting violence. You can't fight off an invasion with flowers and nice words.

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 no…

Russians are targeting civilians. Thus, we should assume they are state-sponsored terrorists, not soldiers.
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