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 referendum) and the Russian military involved in the "operation".

You're desperately looking for a ground to stand on that simply do not exist -- please explain how Ukraine can "self-defend" and "stand their ground" without "death to the Russian invaders"?

> 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!

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!

>armed occupying forces causing harm.

I don't see how that definition is incompatible with what many of the gangs are doing to southern Texas and California.

"Occupying forces" is equivalent to forces whose objective is to replace the current governmental system with their own rule of law. Given Mexican gangsters aren't replacing the governmental systems in these areas, this remains compatible with the assertion that "death to Mexican gangsters" lacks the proper identifying keywords to be allowed on platforms with rules against hate speech.

Just because some people (a subset of a given group and their consensus on topics) think Mexican gangster are occupying forces, doesn't actually make them occupying forces. It just means those people are incorrect in their assumptions about what is true, or not, as viewed by the governing group, in a given area.

Are ordinary Russians invaders?

Do we really want to ask that question? We might not like the answer that some Ukrainians may give. Facebook was saying that "calls for violence on Russians" are okay given the context, full stop, then they clumsily backpedaled on the civilians issue and then only for threats they arbitrarily judge as "credible", which tells you how ridiculous the back-pedaling was. This is not going well for them.

Which country are the Russians in question citizens of?

Ordinary Russians are either invaders, or an unavoidable collateral damage - sad, but justified.

Heh wait until Putin finds out the Gondorians- uhh Ukrainians- think they are orcs.

This is the most absurd take. So they should stand their ground against the Russian advance, but inflict no harm to the Russian soldiers?

You’re welcome to try it, but please forgive the Ukrainians if they take the common sense route.

By the way, there’s a reason we admire Tank Man, but we don’t know his identity.

In case you are unaware, stand-your-ground is a term that allows for deadly force to repel an attacker instead of mandating retreat if it is an option.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law

I think most people are okay with that, especially in the west, but I'd say all over the world. But in the west you have strong values of fighting for your freedom, arming yourself, having the right to be armed and to fight for your freedoms and that death is better than surrendering your freedoms.

These are only US traditions, especially about firearms. And if I look at the results, your idealistic and self-confident description seems a bit too positive.

I’m aware of it. But in the context of war, it’s splitting hairs.

Is a UN resolution the appropriate standard? The General Assembly vote was non-binding, and it didn't specifically call for violence against Russian soldiers. So that seems like a shaky basis for Facebook to set content policies.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/3/un-general-assembly-...

To be clear, I support the right of Ukrainians to defend themselves against foreign aggression. I just think these constantly shifting Facebook censorship policies are ridiculous.

Problem is, given the circumstances, any violence against Russia would be a morally valid form of defense. Including whatever might happen within Russia.