Facebook changed its hate speech policy. Hate against the Russian and Belarusian presidents is allowed.

A private clinic in Munich, Iatros-Klinik, has written a letter refusing to treat Russian and Belarusian citizens with immediate effect. Their solidarity applies only to the Ukrainian people.

After the letter went viral and caused outrage, the clinic clawed back and admitted on its website that it had expressed itself imprecisely. Didn't say a word about whether she would continue to treat Russians or Belarusians or not.

Russians and their relatives living in Switzerland are also increasingly reporting on social media and reporting discrimination in everyday life.

Facebook recently changed its hate speech guidelines for twelve Eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine. From now on it should be allowed to stir up hatred against the Russian and Belarusian presidents or to call for their deaths. The same applies to Russian soldiers and everyone who supported Russia in the war. Calls for violence against Russian citizens should still be deleted. The internal emails available to Reuters do not reveal how they envisage an accurate implementation of this rule.

The change on Facebook that allows users to praise to the Azov Battalion, the Nazi militia that supported Ukraine back in 2014, remains difficult to digest. The crimes of these neo-Nazis in Donbass have already been documented by the UN human rights organization OHCHR. Putin uses the existence of this militia as legitimacy for his cruel vendetta.

Why is this undifferentiated hate legitimacy against Russians not surprising? What would have been unthinkable in the West in the recent past has been tolerated in the last two years: the exclusion of dissidents from the Corona crisis, open hatred of those who have not been vaccinated or those who refuse to wear a mask. Everything for the good cause. A bit of Russian hatred can't hurt.

Source: Die Weltwoche