9 ms·

It's going to be really awkward when this is all over and big tech has to pivot back to when nationalism, strong borders, private firearm ownership, and armed n

It's going to be really awkward when this is all over and big tech has to pivot back to when nationalism, strong borders, private firearm ownership, and armed neo-nazi militias[0] were all bad things. [0] https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/ https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-ba...

andybak 5y ago
> boarders I think you meant "borders".
- barbacoa 5y ago
  edited
bjt2n3904 5y ago
That's just it though. The position was never that it was BAD per-se. It's just... They wanted to control who was permitted to express nationalist sentiment, who were acceptable targets of "hate", and who was allowed to own guns.
- rosndo 5y ago
  Ah no. Nazis are bad. But it’s okay to praise Nazis for doing good things. This is perfectly internally consistent.
  - delusional 5y ago
    I think the saying is "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Notice that when that second enemy isn't there, the friendship vanishes as well. Nazis can be accepted while fighting a bigger enemy without having to accept them when the enemy is defeated.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      As Stalin said during WWII about working with the west: "You can walk with the devil to the end of the bridge." But I think Schlock Mercenary has a better take on this: "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more; no less."
  - failedengineer 5y ago
    Controversial take. "Nazis who travel to Ukraine to fight Russians are less bad people doing morally and ethically ambiguous things. Once they leave Ukraine, the actions they performed involving Russians are both unethical (because they willingly travelled there to murder conscripted teenagers) and ethical (because they willingly travelled there, presumably to defend the sovereignty of a nation they have tenuous cultural links with)" Just wait 'til the Ukrainian Foreign Legion starts to be accused of things like massacres (whether legitimate or false reports for propaganda), then guys who were marching in BLM counter protests who went to Ukraine (again, running with the bad nazis doing good things) will have their social media histories paraded about to defame the entire foreign legion.
    - rosndo 5y ago
      But most of the nazis people speak of in the context of Ukraine are not foreigners traveling there, but Ukrainian citizens.
      - failedengineer 5y ago
        That changes things quite a bit, and definitely goes into the "none of our business, let the Ukrainians decide who is on their side" line of thinking for me, since all most of us are doing is putting blue and yellow on things and pretending that makes a difference. I wouldn't be comfortable working with a Nazi on a line in a kitchen, just as I'm sure they'd say the same about me, but if Russia invaded here, I'd be quite comfortable "walking with him to the end of the bridge," as the other poster said. Deal with the day-to-day bologna after you've dealt with the once-in-a-century bologna.
rvz 5y ago
They are going to have a hard time trying to explain themselves as to why they are praising Nazis on their platform and why they did not 'de-platform hate' especially those ones. For companies like Facebook and Instagram, outrage sells; especially during a war. So why not squeeze out extra ads while they are at it?
- Melatonic 5y ago
  I suspect this is the real reason. Condone "Outrage" whenever you think you can get away with it.
bushbaba 5y ago
Or the defense that they "can't" censor for the government.
usernomdeguerre 5y ago
You may not even be able to express calls for peace and be a conscientious objector! https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/china-censors-online-ukraine-debate-bars-calls-peace-2022-03-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/china-censors...
323 5y ago
The Israeli military is arming and training the neo-nazi militias in Ukraine. There are even Orthodox Jews who joined the Azov neo-nazi militias to defend Ukraine. Sometimes it can be complicated. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-jews-push-back-against-putins-neo-nazi-claim-as-they-gear-up-for-battle/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-jews-push-back-again... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-isr...
- forum_ghost 5y ago
  Israel sells weapons to anyone, it's just business. As for the "orthodox jews fighting alongside nazis", that is just an unfounded claim, without any evidence other than double hearsay in a third-rate newspaper. Orthodox jews often don't serve even in Israel (inb4: yes, yes, ulta-orthodox, etc etc, but still, and yeshiva students are still exempt). I'd like to see stronger evidence than hearsay for this extraordinary claim, does it exist?
  - sofixa 5y ago
    Israel refused to sell the Iron Dome and similar systems to Ukraine, so not everyone.
delusional 5y ago
War makes unlikely alliances. If you're fighting for the existence of your country you're not going to say no to the help of nazis. And if you're using the biggest social media platform on the planet to organize that war, you're going to want your allies on it. What you've just discovered is that a unified policy across the entire world isn't actually the right policy. In one country you may want to ban some stuff you wouldn't ban in another one.
- nradov 5y ago
  How should Facebook adjust policies on a country by country basis? Should Facebook ban content on homosexuality or marijuana use in countries where those things are illegal?
  - lupire 5y ago
    Of course they do.
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    Yeah, probably. You might not like it, but if you want to do business in a country, you generally need to follow their laws. That's how this shit works. Don't like it? Don't do business there.
- cato_the_elder 5y ago
  > War makes unlikely alliances. That is certainly true. There are many examples of that. Israel provided weapons and advisers to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. They even bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor for them. [1] A more widely known example is the alliance between US and the Soviets during the WW2. > What you've just discovered is that a unified policy across the entire world isn't actually the right policy. I disagree with that. The ideal "public square" platforms should be neutral. The best policy (which I think will work in almost all cases for general platforms like FB) is to stick to supporting free expression as much as the law permits, don't manipulate people's feeds, and develop tools to let people filter out the content they don't want to see. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_role_in_the_Iran–Iraq_war https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_role_in_the_Iran–...
systemvoltage 5y ago
Surprised to see no talk about revenue. I am highly cynical about it - This hate that we're talking about sells. It sells like hotcakes. The entire world is on a binge with it. The other kind of hate that gets banned brings no revenue and upsets the core audience by the means of PR damage of the platform.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20220310213449if_/https//www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220310213449if_/https//www.reu...
thesmok 5y ago
What's awkward right now is how people in the west say "nazi" because some Ukrainians are wearing some pagan symbols while defending their land. While Russians are actually committing was crimes saying Ukrainian nation is not a real one.
- mardifoufs 5y ago
  The back sun isn't just a pagan symbol. This is pure revisionism, the exact version they use was literally designed by Himmler for the SS. Are we really doing " the swastika is just a religious symbol" or "the confederate flag is just about historic heritage" now?
  - thesmok 5y ago
    Oh no, I'm just saying a lot of people concentrate more on symbols than they do on actions. Nazism is evolving like everything else, and the new nazi symbol is Z.
zozbot234 5y ago
That's not the point, really. This is real, hard proof, courtesy of Facebook and Instagram, that the West are a bunch of rabidly anti-Russian Nazis just like Putin has been saying all along! It's hard to think of a worse move. Now, if they had simply clarified that calls to military self-defense in the face of an internationally-condemned "military operation" don't count as "calls to violence", that would be a very different matter. But that's not what they did!

andybak 5y ago

> boarders I think you meant "borders".

barbacoa 5y ago
edited

bjt2n3904 5y ago

That's just it though. The position was never that it was BAD per-se. It's just... They wanted to control who was permitted to express nationalist sentiment, who were acceptable targets of "hate", and who was allowed to own guns.

rosndo 5y ago
Ah no. Nazis are bad. But it’s okay to praise Nazis for doing good things. This is perfectly internally consistent.
- delusional 5y ago
  I think the saying is "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Notice that when that second enemy isn't there, the friendship vanishes as well. Nazis can be accepted while fighting a bigger enemy without having to accept them when the enemy is defeated.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    As Stalin said during WWII about working with the west: "You can walk with the devil to the end of the bridge." But I think Schlock Mercenary has a better take on this: "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more; no less."
- failedengineer 5y ago
  Controversial take. "Nazis who travel to Ukraine to fight Russians are less bad people doing morally and ethically ambiguous things. Once they leave Ukraine, the actions they performed involving Russians are both unethical (because they willingly travelled there to murder conscripted teenagers) and ethical (because they willingly travelled there, presumably to defend the sovereignty of a nation they have tenuous cultural links with)" Just wait 'til the Ukrainian Foreign Legion starts to be accused of things like massacres (whether legitimate or false reports for propaganda), then guys who were marching in BLM counter protests who went to Ukraine (again, running with the bad nazis doing good things) will have their social media histories paraded about to defame the entire foreign legion.
  - rosndo 5y ago
    But most of the nazis people speak of in the context of Ukraine are not foreigners traveling there, but Ukrainian citizens.
    - failedengineer 5y ago
      That changes things quite a bit, and definitely goes into the "none of our business, let the Ukrainians decide who is on their side" line of thinking for me, since all most of us are doing is putting blue and yellow on things and pretending that makes a difference. I wouldn't be comfortable working with a Nazi on a line in a kitchen, just as I'm sure they'd say the same about me, but if Russia invaded here, I'd be quite comfortable "walking with him to the end of the bridge," as the other poster said. Deal with the day-to-day bologna after you've dealt with the once-in-a-century bologna.

rvz 5y ago

They are going to have a hard time trying to explain themselves as to why they are praising Nazis on their platform and why they did not 'de-platform hate' especially those ones. For companies like Facebook and Instagram, outrage sells; especially during a war. So why not squeeze out extra ads while they are at it?

Melatonic 5y ago
I suspect this is the real reason. Condone "Outrage" whenever you think you can get away with it.

bushbaba 5y ago

Or the defense that they "can't" censor for the government.

usernomdeguerre 5y ago

You may not even be able to express calls for peace and be a conscientious objector! https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/china-censors-online-ukraine-debate-bars-calls-peace-2022-03-10/ https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/china-censors...

323 5y ago

The Israeli military is arming and training the neo-nazi militias in Ukraine. There are even Orthodox Jews who joined the Azov neo-nazi militias to defend Ukraine. Sometimes it can be complicated. https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-jews-push-back-against-putins-neo-nazi-claim-as-they-gear-up-for-battle/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/ukrainian-jews-push-back-again... https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-isr...

forum_ghost 5y ago
Israel sells weapons to anyone, it's just business. As for the "orthodox jews fighting alongside nazis", that is just an unfounded claim, without any evidence other than double hearsay in a third-rate newspaper. Orthodox jews often don't serve even in Israel (inb4: yes, yes, ulta-orthodox, etc etc, but still, and yeshiva students are still exempt). I'd like to see stronger evidence than hearsay for this extraordinary claim, does it exist?
- sofixa 5y ago
  Israel refused to sell the Iron Dome and similar systems to Ukraine, so not everyone.

delusional 5y ago

War makes unlikely alliances. If you're fighting for the existence of your country you're not going to say no to the help of nazis. And if you're using the biggest social media platform on the planet to organize that war, you're going to want your allies on it. What you've just discovered is that a unified policy across the entire world isn't actually the right policy. In one country you may want to ban some stuff you wouldn't ban in another one.

nradov 5y ago
How should Facebook adjust policies on a country by country basis? Should Facebook ban content on homosexuality or marijuana use in countries where those things are illegal?
- lupire 5y ago
  Of course they do.
- verve_rat 5y ago
  Yeah, probably. You might not like it, but if you want to do business in a country, you generally need to follow their laws. That's how this shit works. Don't like it? Don't do business there.
cato_the_elder 5y ago
> War makes unlikely alliances. That is certainly true. There are many examples of that. Israel provided weapons and advisers to Iran during the Iran-Iraq war. They even bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor for them. [1] A more widely known example is the alliance between US and the Soviets during the WW2. > What you've just discovered is that a unified policy across the entire world isn't actually the right policy. I disagree with that. The ideal "public square" platforms should be neutral. The best policy (which I think will work in almost all cases for general platforms like FB) is to stick to supporting free expression as much as the law permits, don't manipulate people's feeds, and develop tools to let people filter out the content they don't want to see. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_role_in_the_Iran–Iraq_war https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%27s_role_in_the_Iran–...

systemvoltage 5y ago

Surprised to see no talk about revenue. I am highly cynical about it - This hate that we're talking about sells. It sells like hotcakes. The entire world is on a binge with it. The other kind of hate that gets banned brings no revenue and upsets the core audience by the means of PR damage of the platform.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220310213449if_/https//www.reuters.com/world/europe/exclusive-facebook-instagram-temporarily-allow-calls-violence-against-russians-2022-03-10/ https://web.archive.org/web/20220310213449if_/https//www.reu...

thesmok 5y ago

What's awkward right now is how people in the west say "nazi" because some Ukrainians are wearing some pagan symbols while defending their land. While Russians are actually committing was crimes saying Ukrainian nation is not a real one.

mardifoufs 5y ago
The back sun isn't just a pagan symbol. This is pure revisionism, the exact version they use was literally designed by Himmler for the SS. Are we really doing " the swastika is just a religious symbol" or "the confederate flag is just about historic heritage" now?
- thesmok 5y ago
  Oh no, I'm just saying a lot of people concentrate more on symbols than they do on actions. Nazism is evolving like everything else, and the new nazi symbol is Z.

zozbot234 5y ago

That's not the point, really. This is real, hard proof, courtesy of Facebook and Instagram, that the West are a bunch of rabidly anti-Russian Nazis just like Putin has been saying all along! It's hard to think of a worse move. Now, if they had simply clarified that calls to military self-defense in the face of an internationally-condemned "military operation" don't count as "calls to violence", that would be a very different matter. But that's not what they did!