How might that feel? You press a button and millions of people are no longer able to see certain content on the Internet. The power over global information flows that obscure autocrats like Vladimir Putin want lies with opaque, centrally controlled tech companies. Companies like Meta, Google, Twitter and Tiktok have blocked Russian propaganda lies since the Russian incursion into Ukraine began. The Kremlin then blocked the relevant platforms. The Russian users were left behind in the tightening propaganda bubble of the state media. What a win.
The buttons were pressed hastily, it was war. Gradually, however, a public discussion should begin as to whether the social media companies have lived up to their responsibility. Something speaks against it.
The Meta group in particular, with its platforms Facebook and Instagram the most important player, has acted unhappily. He decided to relax the rules on hate speech so that Ukrainians would not have to be censored if they wished the attackers dead. As cynical as it sounds, hatred is the norm in a war. Presumably, there would have been so much to block that Meta’s deletion teams would have had to automatically block posts by the Ukrainians, for example using software that searches for keywords. They had made themselves tools of the Russian censorship apparatus. A totally unacceptable scenario.
The platforms have already seen wars
The easing of the hate speech guidelines became public through a leak to the Reuters news agency. The clandestine way of just allowing hatred of Russians gave the Kremlin a through ball to demonize Meta as a western organization loyal to the state and to block its services. YouTube, on the other hand, which belongs to Google, initially only blocked the channels of the Russian state broadcasters in Europe at the request of the EU and let them run in other parts of the world. The group then decided on a global ban, but the impression that a state information doctrine was being implemented here – in other words: censored – had already arisen.
It could have been very different if the corporations had acted transparently and proactively. If they had had rules and procedures on how to deal with armed conflicts that were publicly accessible and equally valid for all states. For example, in the form of independent commissions, in which expertise on human rights and freedom of information on the one hand and on the conflict region on the other come together to agree on deletion practices in the present case. Would have. Would. well
It’s not as if something unprecedented happened on February 24th, especially not from the point of view of international tech platforms. They have experience with wars and armed riots, for example in the Middle East, in Nagorno-Karabakh, Myanmar, Ethiopia – but these parts of the world have never particularly interested them. They didn’t really go to the trouble of delving deeper into wars and the accompanying information wars.
The next conflict will come
In any case, the fight for a free Russian Internet is not entirely lost. YouTube is still freely accessible in Russia. On Monday, a Russian court also surprisingly ruled that Instagram and Facebook can still be used legally under certain conditions. Because of the lock, the platforms can only be reached via a technical trick. While it might be too hopeful to take this as a sign of an imminent relaxation of government censorship, it’s not too late for tech companies to create independent structures to deal with wartime content. If not for this one, then at least for the next conflict. Because he will come.
Flawless autocrats will seek to ban free social media, no matter how transparent and remote the corporations operate. In eroding democracies, however, in which not all pillars have been broken down, those in power could then have a hard time with it. That can decide wars – ideally in such a way that they don’t even begin.