Ukraine Asks Zuckerberg to Discipline Kremlin Facebook Bots 254
mi writes "Ukrainian media is reporting (link in Ukrainian), that Facebook is getting increasingly heavy-handed blocking Ukrainian bloggers. The likely explanation for the observed phenomenon is that Facebook's Ukrainian office is located in Russia and is headed by a Russian citizen (Catherine Skorobogatov). For example, a post calling on Russian mothers to not let their sons go to war was blocked "Due to multiple complaints". Fed up, Ukrainian users are writing directly to Zukerberg to ask him to replace Catherine with someone, who would not be quite as swayed by the "complaints" generated by Russian bots.
Maybe, but maybe not... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah yes, only the most reliable sources at Slashdot...
But anyway, the more likely explanation is that like many social media platforms, Facebook uses automated systems to deal with thousands and thousands of content complaints every day. Usually, after a certain number of complaints, the system automatically blocks the content, and the original poster has to challenge the block. Keep in mind that due to the volume of content complaints that these types of services get, humans rarely get involved in the beginning, it is simply all automated.
It's possible and even probable that the complaints themselves are âoeorchestratedâ by people with political aims, perhaps even government employees. But that doesn't mean that Facebook is somehow âoecooperatingâ with the Russians because the head of their Russian office is, well, Russian.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are you using Facebook... Stop using it and take the power from that twit.
Wait.... what? (Score:4, Insightful)
...Facebook's Ukrainian office is located in Russia...
Whose brilliant idea was that?
Re:Maybe, but maybe not... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not public pages Russian apologist fag. Suck dick and kill yourself.
Why not have the balls to sign in to your account and say that, troll? I'm only pointing out the obvious, not agreeing or disagreeing with any particular political view.
Re:Wait.... what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably FB's.
Where's the problem? I mean, for FB. Why should FB care whether Ukraine or Russia is winning the media war? As long as people follow it on FB, FB is winning.
In the short term maybe, but bad PR matters.
If people start associating FB with pro-Russian censorship people will think less positively of FB. Even without any kind of boycott they'll enjoy their time on FB less due to the negative association, as a result they'll use it less and potentially even open the door for a competitor a little bit more.
It's probably not a big deal as far as FB is concerned, but it's certainly not something in their favour.
Zuk Don't Care (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny that the Ukrainians think Zuckerberg cares. He's the worst kind of anti-freedom, in-bed-with-the-government, limousine socialist there is. Mr. Open-All-The-Borders hides behind his armed guards at his gated mansion so he wont have to be burdened with the consequences of his actions. Appealing to Zuckerberg to stop blocking their social media efforts is going to have about as much effect as appealing directly to Putin to stop invading.
Some people might unfairly judge Ukraine (Score:0, Insightful)
Some people might look at all the news reports, and not being used to propaganda, paint Ukraine in a worse light that reality. The reality is that the Kremlin is putting out propaganda just like the old Tass news days when Stalin, Kruschev and Brezhnev were running the show. The brinksmanship, the threats, the aggression, coercion, and rolling tanks, armoured personnel carriers, rockets, heavy field guns, anti-aircraft guns, and airbourne troops into another country is just like what they did in Czecheslovakia or Poland or Hungary or a dozen other countries over the last 50 years (lets be more recent and not forget the 20% of Georgia they stole in 2002 or the entire Crimea they stole just 6 months ago). This is naked Russian aggression. "We are armed to the teeth with nuclear bombs and if you dare do anything to stop us from shooting up whoever we want boy will we blow you to smithereens". But they had better be careful, because they aren't the only ones with nuclear bombs, and at some point enough is enough and in the world of high stakes poker "I call". They will have to test their weapons and see if they are as good as they say, and will be looking at lots of x-rays (and by God they sure have earned it).
Re:Rules of war (Score:5, Insightful)
It *is* a military assault, and it is orchestrated by Russia... but it is still a game. For example, Russia is not attempting to gain control of the airspace over Ukraine (heaven forbid they try, there are NATO air resources all around the place and those might get involved, resulting in a far larger-scale war).
It is just that for politicians to play "chicken", thousands of soldiers have to die.
On this level of the game, Russia intensively re-supplies and re-mans rebel fighters, hoping that the Ukraininan government grows desperate and starts negotiations on very favourable terms. (It pays to remember that the Ukraininan government previously proposed negotiations, during a ceasefire, but rebels rejected this.) Meanwhile, the Ukraininan government is trying to solicit foreign financial and military aid, to outlast and push back the offensive and negotiate when very serious economic sanctions have been enacted against Russia.
For the soldiers who die, and the civilians who die from collateral damage, rest assured, this is not a game, and I (as an anarchist) would very much prefer if some helpful person would take out the trash that is called Vladimir Putin (and if it's necessary, then also Petro Poroshenko, though it must be said that he did't start this - he was hired when shit was alreadu spinning with the fan).
Re:Some people might unfairly judge Ukraine (Score:2, Insightful)
"...rolling tanks, armoured personnel carriers, rockets, heavy field guns, anti-aircraft guns, and airbourne troops into another country is just like what they did in Czecheslovakia or Poland or Hungary or a dozen other countries over the last 50 years..."
Sorry, that's utter rubbish.
1. If Russia had been "rolling tanks, armoured personnel carriers, rockets, heavy field guns, anti-aircraft guns, and airbourne [sic] troops" into Ukraine, it would have been subdued within a week at most - just as Czechoslovakia (sp) and Poland and Hungary were subdued, despite being far better organized than Ukraine today.
2. Hello! This is Russia - which, in case you hadn't noticed, is different from the USSR. Of course, if you are desperate to have a Hideous Giant Foreign Enemy at all times, and you can't do better than Mr Putin, have at it. But do remember that he can push a button and destroy all life on earth, so the USA has no advantage whatsoever in that regard. And do, please, remember that he is human and can get angry or make mistakes. So please - for all our sakes - don't push him too hard. If you are one of those Rapture nutcases, please just go and kill yourself, and leave the rest of us out of it.
Actually Russians not well informed ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because anyone who speaks Russian (or Ukrainian) obviously wouldn't know anything about the situation in Russia or Ukraine. Better listen to armchair pundits who never leave their easy chairs in New York. Oh wait.
In short, Russians are about as well informed today as the German people were in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. You got much more accurate information out of London and New York both in 1939 and today.
A person in New York would be so better informed than a person in Russian that it would be ridiculous. Russian media and nearly all discussion is Kremlin controlled. There is no free flow of information to make reasoned judgments upon unless you are in the west. So some of the nonsense coming out or Russia is not intentional, its all its people have been told. When they refer to the Ukrainians as Nazi's its not really a historical reference. They actually think a neo-Nazi coup has taken place in Kiev. They have never hear the truth that a corrupt President feared growing calls for investigation and prosecution, that his security services used deadly force about peaceful protesters to quiet these growing calls, took his money and fled, and was replaced in new elections called for after abandoning his post.
In the West we can watch the RT network (a Kremlin controlled network) and dozens of other networks with political biases ranging from the far left to the far right. We can compare and contrast. In Russia you get RT's perspective and only the information they provide.
And for those going to more modern news sources, to social networks, well you see what is happening on facebook. More heavy Kremlin influence in the Russia.
Re:Some people might unfairly judge Ukraine (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Hello! This is Russia - which, in case you hadn't noticed, is different from the USSR
Not really. In the eyes of most of the world, the names may have changed, but you still act the same.
Re:Rules of war (Score:3, Insightful)
As Ukraine is under military assault by Russia at the moment, they should abandon any complaint monitoring for the time being.
That turns out not to be the case. The Ukrainian army - which is rapidly running out of effectives who are willing to lay down their lives for billionaire Nazi oligarchs - has been severely mauled by the militias formed to defend the area around Donetsk and Lugansk. As Americans would form militias to fight for their homes if an army trundled into their state and began bombarding city centres.
Turns out? Turns out?
The legal government led by the newly democratically elected president of the Ukraine was winning and driving the rebels out of even their stongholds like Luhansk, before the Russians decided to openly intervene instead of just sending "soldiers on holliday" and anti-maylasia air systems.
Now, as in the latest few days the Ukraines are withdrawing, they havn't lost any engagements yet, but are moving to better prositions and waiting for international reactions before engaging the invading Russian troops.
Re:Why are the Ukrainians using facebook? (Score:5, Insightful)
The freedom to speak is worthless if there is nobody to listen to you. In other words, nobody hears you scream on the internet, unless you're screaming where everyone is listening.
Re:Rules of war (Score:3, Insightful)
My considered opinion is that the Ukrainian military is not motivated, not trained, not equipped, not professional, and not reliable. They are heading for the hills because they can't endure the battle which is their duty. They will have a long, long, long wait if they wait for mommy in the form of "international reaction" to punish their bullies.
My assessment does not rely on the completely unsupported phantasm of OMG Russian troops. I don't give it because it pleases me that the situation is this way, but I decline to warp my view of the situation to fit my fantasy of how things ought to be.
Re:How I know that Russian troops are not in Ukrai (Score:4, Insightful)
Funny, grandparent did not show me any "telltale signs" at all, and I am pretty sensitive to awkward phraseology one finds in non native speakers. Not that being a non native speaker is in any way naughty or evil. His post is actually well composed, thoughtful, highly cogent (unlike yours), and makes excellent points.
Perhaps you would be good enough to elaborate on these "telltale signs". You can regard that as calling bullshit if you so wish.
It is parent who strikes me as being very partisan. That's not a bad thing per se, except when you believe you are accomplished anything by spouting blather and no meaningful debate.
Re:Wait.... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is more than a little bit more complicated then that and I would also suggest that the US where anything but very quick when it came to the break up of Yugoslavia.
Firstly as a general rule the existing countries are very very slow to recognise a break-away province as a country in its own right. This can be seen with the Basque in Spain for example. Even Catalan, an autonomous region in Spain is extremely unlikely to become a country in its own right despite being perhaps the most capable. As a whole the status quo holds.
Add into that the fact that countries like Ukraine were meant to be buffer states. States that didn't hold too closely to the west but weren't part of Russia to give Russia a sense of security. Historically Russia has seen pressure from two major geopolitical areas, Europe and China. It has become a relatively paranoid country.
When the coup occurred in Kiev it shifted the Ukraine heavily westward. Talks of become members of NATO were even brought up. To Russia this is seen as a huge threat (whether it is or not is a different argument). The perception is also that the only reason this happened was due to western agitation. As a result there is really no question that Russia began to agitate the heavily Russian parts of Ukraine to split away. It may not quite be the buffer thickness that Ukraine whole was but it is still better than nothing from their perspective.
What we are seeing here is a return to cold war mentality. This dispute is now being split along east / west lines. US good, Russia Bad or vice versa.
Unfortunately I think it is distracting the major powers from what really is posing the biggest threat and that is ISIS in the middle east. We are running the real risk of having a large militant religious state coming into existence in an already politically fragile area. And the worst thing is that Assad if the best option to stop it.
Re:Rules of war (Score:1, Insightful)
Ukraine needs to STOP attacking it's own people and begin TALKING.
Russia would then have no NEED to intercede.
When you bomb your own people you shouldn't GET any help to do it, only to STOP it.
Re:Wait.... what? (Score:2, Insightful)
"Please, get the CNN polls and stuff them deep into your rectum. They are worth just that."
Why, because they're inconvenient for your pro-Putin lies? What about the City.am one which stems from a neutral Ukrainian polling outfit before it all kicked off? I guess that was so inconvenient you couldn't even address it?
"Here's a video of locals stopping a tank: https://www.youtube.com/watch [youtube.com]?... Here is an iconic picture of Putin's agent provocateurs blocking a railroad crossing to stop Ukrainian tanks: http://www.rbc.ua/rus/news/acc [www.rbc.ua]... and another one http://crisisua.net/zhiteli-sl [crisisua.net]."
You know that repeating yourself doesn't make something true right? As I said, hundreds, some of whom are legit, but others who are agent provocateurs does not equate to popular support.
The fact you're persisting in arguing that numbers in the hundreds, or thousands in a specific circumstance in a specific place controlled by Russian's is somehow representative of the millions whilst also claiming polls that are objective and more representative are useless tells us one thing - you're not arguing based on rationality, you're arguing based on an agenda, a pro-Russian, pro-Putin one.
"I was personally in Kramatorsk helping to move my friend's family from there during the start of the conflict. And I certainly know that the reason for the conflict was not Putin."
I was there yesterday and everyone told me they hate Putin and it's all his fault. Last night on the phone Putin even told me it's his fault. See how that works?
"And? Mariupol is fairly far from Donetsk, and after one month or brainwashing by the Ukrainian media,"
So what was the excuse last time the Ukrainians liberated Mariupol because the populace helped kick the Russian's out? That was over a month ago, or is that also too much of an inconvenient truth for you? Why is it a problem if Ukraine blocks Russia today after months of pro-Russian propaganda but the fact that Russia only allows pro-Moscow propaganda? You only think it's bad when Moscow is at the receiving end of censorship? What you said about Ukraine having no opposition TV/Radio, that's false, what they don't have is Russia's propaganda outlet, RT, that's not the same as no opposition voice.
"Incidentally, if we're talking about the people digging trenches: http://gordonua.com/news/war/P [gordonua.com]... then it turned out to be a photo-op, staged by Ukrainian media."
Wow, who'd have thought it? Russian media outlet claims Ukrainian trench digging is photo op! Let's try a more neutral source that's historically aligned with Russia shall we, I suppose the Chinese are supporting Western propaganda too right? - http://news.xinhuanet.com/engl... [xinhuanet.com]
I think you need to stop swallowing Putin's propaganda, it's not good for you, you're siding with anecdotes and propaganda over polls and objective sources.
Re:Wait.... what? (Score:5, Insightful)
They were NOT staged.
Yes they WERE staged.
Do you even understand Russian or are you simply parroting the shit that the mass media blindly copies from Ukrainian media?
So, one has to speak russian to understand this conflict? Really?
I have been trying to follow the conflict reporting from both mainstream media as well as from Russia Today. The twists from RT is really mindblowing. They even broke the news that the seperatists had shot down *another* Ukrainian plane - only to pull it without any notice, update or trace whatsoever on the RT site once they found out that it was a civilian plane and that the official story was going to be to pin it on the Ukrainians.
Russia Today does not follow common practices for journalism designed to keep media outlets accountable. And Russia Today and Russian controlled media has lost every bit of trust.
Western media are not controlled by governments. Russian media are. Western governments do not crack down on dissidents and bloggers. Russian government does.
Which leads be to the reason for posting this:
Fascism
- is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism
- is a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity
- abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion
All of the above fits Russia. Not Ukraine. I don't know if Putin is a fascist himself (I suspect so), but he is playing the ultranationalism card, he talk about Russia being humiliated and threatens nuclear retaliation, he talks about Russian superiority, he claims right to invade any country who (in his mind) humiliates russian citizens or ethnic/russian speaking minorities, he pursues dissidents of his regime and he disregards treaties and expands territory and annexes weaker states (see Georgia, Ossetia, Ukraine/Crimea).
Russia is now engulfed in neo-fascism, Russians taking pride in their new "superiority" and getting back at the world for laughing at them for so many years.
This time around there is no excuse for not knowing the truth. Last time you could claim you did not know because you were lied to. This time you have to actively put the fingers in your ears and shout LALALALA. And that's what you do.
You have shown once again that you will fall for a leader who promises to bully the world, steal and loot, break treaties, threaten nuclear strikes, lie and cheat and play fast and loose the peace of lives of people. For that you deserve despise.
We may not laugh at you any more. But we will never trust you again. You make me sick.