(RightWing.org) – Facebook has a troubling pattern of arbitrarily throttling conservative voices. Most famously, it shut down Donald Trump’s account while he was still in office. At the same time, the platform appears to embrace dangerous extremists, most recently appearing to exclude a neo-Nazi group from its rules because it supports Ukraine.
Internal Facebook memos obtained by The National Pulse reportedly revealed the social media giant recently reversed its position on posts praising the Azov Battalion, an extremist neo-Nazi unit of Ukraine’s National Guard.
According to The National Pulse, Facebook decided to lift its ban on posts related to the group when users “explicitly and exclusively” praised the group for its efforts to defend Ukraine against Russian troops.
In 2019, Facebook established a policy banning praise of racist or terrorist organizations, specifically including the KKK, ISIS & the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion. But Facebook just reversed its position: "we are making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment". #UkraineWar pic.twitter.com/gpceCFc2WA
— Jake Morphonios 🔴 Blackstone Intelligence (@morphonios) March 3, 2022
A spokesperson for Facebook’s parent company, Meta, confirmed the veracity of the information detailed in the memos. The company claimed it would continue censoring any posts that included “hate speech, hate symbolism, [and] praise of violence,” along with any other content violating its so-called community standards.
The Azov Battalion gained notoriety for its use of symbols from an elite armored division of the Waffen-SS operated by Nazi Germany during World War II. Numerous allegations involving the practice of torture and war crimes have also surrounded the group since its founding in 2014.
What do you think of Facebook allowing praise of a neo-Nazi group in any context?
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