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Saturday, October 5, 2024

Russia-Ukraine war and the conundrum of hate speech

Although the Meta thinks its decision is of utmost importance as it ensures freedom of speech, aligning it with self-defense in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it seems now igniting the wrath in the already raging war between two nations. It is deciphered to note here that if the war becomes more protracted, it would turn bitterly catastrophic.

A couple of days ago, the giant Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has endorsed violent speech on Facebook against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It has momentarily eased its policy on violent speech right after Russia has started posing its foray on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. But in truth, they have violence it.

This decision has proved that lawmakers are always the lawbreakers. As Facebook had decided to remove posts containing hate speech stuff from its platform and it deleted approximately seven million posts of such kinds at the end of 2019. It was also told that Facebook had developed an artificial intelligence mechanism that could detect such content riddled with hatred expression.

But now Facebook and Instagram platforms have been headed to violate their own policy of “say no to hate speech.”The acrimonious criticism over this decision has crescendoed over the past few days. It may add fuel to an already uncontrolled fire. Also, the UN has come down like a ton of bricks on the said decision. Because this decision is not the way forward for this ongoing war.

Read more: Russia to limit Ukraine war?

Understanding the matter better

Although the Meta thinks its decision is of utmost importance as it ensures freedom of speech, aligning it with self-defense in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, it seems now igniting the wrath in the already raging war between two nations. It is deciphered to note here that if the war becomes more protracted, it would turn bitterly catastrophic. Henceforth, if the policy works, it will have to answer a question: what about Indian Occupied Kashmiris? Should they not be raised voices for, supporting hate speech in response to calamities India has brought over there? Though the age of violence against IoKs is far longer than against Ukrainians, IoKs should be fought for through hate speech in the guise of free speech. Since calamities have been received by IoKs more than that of the Ukrainians.

Again, I must not forget to declare that what I am trying to extrapolate is that social media must be equal and fair come what may. Neither of the mentioned-earlier calamities should be fought against on social media (especially Facebook) with ‘hate speech. Otherwise, there are hundreds of such violent attacks which can be brought under fire on Facebook; albeit it might make Facebook a battlefield. The situation for IoKs is getting even more worst as India is now using humiliation and molestation against women. They are doing this to falter the struggle being made by the Kashmiris for their indisputable right to self-determination. According to a report, the Indian troops have molested over 11,000 Kashmiri women in the last three decades. So to say, women are the most vulnerable victims of Indian state terrorism. This is something really heinous misconduct to be fought against.

Read more: Russian missiles missed 60% targets in Ukraine: US

I must be crystal clear to state here that people across the world no longer accept hate speech as it has a lot of repercussions. For this reason, hate speech had remained rampant on Facebook in India when the whistleblower leaked some internal documents. It was the time when the Muslim minorities of the nation were targeted. This repeatedly proves how detrimental is the decision if made possible. Hate speech, however, should always be nipped in the bud.

 

 

The writer is a member of the editorial board for a Russian research journal, Bulletin of Science and Practice. He can be contacted at rameezalimahesar@gmail.com. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Global Village Space.