While Russia is using social media "to create diversion in Europe", Facebook is routinely banning and blocking those advocating for Ukraine, writes Robert van Voren, professor at Vytautas Magnus University (VDU) in Kaunas and head of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development in Lithuania.
Over the past years there have been numerous reports on troll factories in Russia, and more recently in China, managing thousands of fake social media accounts to inundate the world with propaganda, not just to tell their version of the “truth” but mostly to make people stop believing in truth altogether, and thus also stop questioning what really happened.
A classic case is the downing of Malaysian flight MH17 over Ukraine, which – as recently confirmed by a Dutch court – was caused by a Russian BUK missile shot from territory held by Russian-backed combatants, but which Russia claimed was shot down by Ukraine itself (or, as some stories go, was filled with corpses in the first place and the whole thing was a set-up).
Social media has become an indispensable communication tool, and thus managing it, and preventing abuse, is a key issue. Former President Trump was banned from Twitter because of his persistent lying and is now back because the new owner has a rather different approach to the concept of free speech. Facebook, much criticised for allowing its platform to be used by troll factories, imposed some rules and “community standards”, and has a mainly automated system checking content via algorithms.
Read more: Facebook blocking your Ukraine posts?
That system was clearly not developed for a time of war, when one country brutally invades another, purposely attacked civilian infrastructure, pillages, rapes and kills, and uses weaponry that the civilised world has promised not to use.
It is a system that was developed, apparently, for a near-perfect Hollywood world where people never use bad words, do not express anger or emotions, and is mainly used to post photos of holidays, laughter, parties and sight visits to ancient civilisations.
Alas, the war in Ukraine is far from partying and laughter.
I have been using Facebook for many years, but only since Maidan in 2013-2014 and the following Russian aggression in Eastern Ukraine and Crimea, it became a really important means of communication. It is the main channel in our part of the world, and basically, everybody interested in what happens in Ukraine has a Facebook page. On Facebook, I have my own personal account (with 5,000 friends and about 3,200 followers), but also manage about two dozen other Facebook accounts of organisations and campaigns that I manage.
Just to clarify: I am a human rights activist focusing on the Soviet Union for the past 45 years and was awarded Lithuanian citizenship by President Adamkus in recognition of my work to help Lithuania become a free country based on the rule of law. I reside in Vilnius, am a professor of Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies at Vytautas Magnus University and am also the director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center on Democratic Development at VDU.
I am, in addition, the chief executive of the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry which has been working in Ukraine for more than 32 years. My whole life has focused on human rights and mental health, and my days now are 24/7 focused on the war in Ukraine which, in my view, is a repetition of the 1939-1945 war with the same importance and possible consequences.
My pages on Facebook include the accounts of the above-mentioned institutions, but also for instance the accounts of our psychological aid programs to Belarusian and Ukrainian citizens samopomoch and samopomich. We use Facebook to promote our work, to raise funds (eg for generators for psychiatric hospitals in Ukraine), and we boost our samopomoch and samopomich posts in order to help victims of State repression and war.
Last year we spent more than 30,000 euros on boosting our posts and in 2022 in Ukrainian alone we had more than 50 million views. In short: we are actually a very good Facebook client.
Notwithstanding, since mid-November, I am almost permanently banned from Facebook, and also banned from using all of the related channels, which means I cannot advertise our work, report on what we are doing, or raise funds. In 2022 alone we spent close to 300,000 euros on material aid to mental health care services in Ukraine. That has now basically come to a standstill.
My problems with Facebook are mostly from this year because of the war in Ukraine. Initially, I was warned because of posting photos that showed the indiscriminate bombing of civilian objects in Ukraine. Then I was warned because I copied a joke showing a fake ID of Russian propagandist Simonyan, made when the FSB managed to show the ID of the alleged bomber of the Kerch bridge within 24 hours or so.
Everybody knew the FSB “discovery” was nonsense, and that the fake Simonyan ID was a joke, but I broke "community standards" and received a stern warning.
In November last year, I was in Kyiv when the city was attacked with missiles, and one came down a few streets away from me causing mayhem. In the emotional moment I wrote that "f..king Russians are bombing again" (but without dots), and was immediately banned for 24 hours, but the next day the 24 hours had suddenly been changed into 29 days. Via a Dutch friend of mine, I tried to appeal to the director of Facebook in the Netherlands, but he answered that I must have misunderstood something, and nothing changed.
I tried to be more careful, and when posting a video of phosphorous bombs on Kherson just before New Year I paraphrased the Russians with the text "if you don't want to be liberated we will create hell and bomb you". A person who shared my post was immediately banned, in my case this happened a few days later, again for 29 days.
As I need my Facebook, I created a new one (Robertas van Vorenas), but when I tried to post an obituary for my friend Viktor Fainberg, one of the last alive demonstrators on Red Square in 1968 against the invasion of Czechoslovakia who has died the day before, I noticed that also my new Facebook was blocked, and without any explanation why.
While Russia is using social media on mass to create diversion in Europe and promote its violent campaign against democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and Facebook is doing only little steps to counter this offensive, people like me are blocked for "going against community standards". Facebook pretends to be "neutral" but in fact supports the aggressor and blocks those who try to expose the onslaught on democracy and attempt to help the victims.
Isn’t it time something happens and Facebook is held responsible for what it claims to be, a major communication channel in the modern world? Imagine your telephone provider would block your phone for a month because you said some nasty words or had a shouting match with your husband or wife. Are we living in a kindergarten, where you are told to stand in the corner because “papa Facebook” doesn’t like the way you expressed your thoughts?
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