Facebook and Twitter are standing up to Russia’s censorship. The really cute part, though, is that they are standing up for somebody who is a neo-Nazi.
Of course, the right to free speech is sacrosanct, even when we are talking about neo-Nazi speech. But I wish the media didn’t shy away from pointing out that the story prominently features a neo-Nazi.
Putin’s relationship with neo-Nazis has always been bizarre. At first, they hated him for making enormous payouts to the Chechens to keep Chechnya peaceful. Then, they hated him even more for introducing legislation that banned the neo-Nazi hate speech.
After Putin went to war against Ukraine, Russia’s neo-Nazis fell in love with him.
But now that Putin seems to have withdrawn his support for the Russian neo-Nazis fighting in Ukraine, they are starting to hate him all over again.
And the new wave of Putin’s struggle with the dissident Navalny, who happens to have ties to the neo-Nazi movement, begins.
In case, you have no idea who Navalny is, here is my post about him.
Neonazis should be teleported to the past. Or rather to a non-existent dimension. In my native country they also take advantage of the right of free speech in the US. They all run their websites (and collect donations from their fans) on American servers and the local police is basically powerless to penalize them or remove the sites. The most interesting thing is that they also hate Americans with an insane passion (the only country who makes it possible for them to run their online businesses), and just laugh at their “dumbness” (a.k.a granting the right of free speech to anyone without questions). Maybe it was a good idea in the past, but it can be easily abused in a globalized world.
Facebook wasn’t that determined when they were asked to remove rape-promoting and rape victim abusing FB pages in the past, and it took a quite long time until they removed them. But they happily stand up for neo-nazis. Maybe it’s time to reevaluate their value system (as well as their PR staff).
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I was going to say a similar thing about Facebook. It’s not open and objective. There is actually a right wing agenda in the geezer who invented it.
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The European impulse to imprison anybody who disagrees with the established order is disturbing. But, why limit it to neo-Nazis. I always found it bizaare that denying the Holocaust gets you a very long term prison sentence in Europe, but you can deny Stalin’s crimes and be elected to paraliment.
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I think the vision of the imprisonment of “anybody who disagrees with the established order” is a little bit exaggerated. Fascist parties for example legally operate and are even elected in many European countries. As far as I know Holocaust-denying is punished with imprisonment only in Germany. I didn’t talk about imprisonment though. I only brought up that permitting limitless hate speech (especially against powerless minorities like the Chechens in Russia) is maybe not the best idea.
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Holocaust denial is punished in most European states by long term imprisonment not just Germany. The people promoting hatred against Chechens were never Nazis or Fascists, but rather Stalinists who are still treated with kid gloves everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_against_Holocaust_denial
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Russian neo-Nazis hate Stalin and Chechens equally. Navalny got famous with the slogan “Let’s stop feeding the Caucasus. ” Chechnya is somewhat peaceful as long as Putin keeps feeding its leader Kadyrov. And Kadyrov keeps testing Putin ‘ s patience with regular pronouncements about the laws of the Russian Federation meaning nothing in Chechnya.
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These payouts to Chechnya are what Russian nationalists can’t forgive Putin.
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The payouts and Kadyrov are what let them win the war. Otherwise they would have to kill all of the Chechens. Deporting them to Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan failed. But, I said Nazis not Russian neo-Nazis and the Germans never occupied Chechnya. The Stalin regime wiped out a third of their population in the deportations.
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“The payouts and Kadyrov are what let them win the war. Otherwise they would have to kill all of the Chechens.”
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Neo-nazis are not the problem, neo-nazis are a symptom of a problem and banning them does nothing to address that underlying problem.
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I have a neo-nazi on my but-tock.
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“I have a neo-nazi on my but-tock”
That’s very inexaeft or right? Side or middle?
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Hard to say. Shiftless
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What underlying problem do you exactly mean?
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That a society has been so badly managed (and/or people so badly educated) that neo-nazis seem to have an attractive message.
Neo-nazis will always exist, but in a healthy society (run well and populated by educated people) there will be very few of them and their message won’t get any traction. The size and strength of fringe groups is a good barometer of how well a society is doing
As much as I love Hungary (a lot) and as educated as the Hungarians I’ve known personally are (very highly) there’s clearly something gone very wrong there and that needs to be addressed.
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“Neo-nazis will always exist, but in a healthy society (run well and populated by educated people) there will be very few of them and their message won’t get any traction. The size and strength of fringe groups is a good barometer of how well a society is doing.As much as I love Hungary (a lot) and as educated as the Hungarians I’ve known personally are (very highly) there’s clearly something gone very wrong there and that needs to be addressed.”
My husband is slightly older but it’s his story, as well. Unlike me, he never wanted to emigrate. This was not even remotely his dream. But he needed a place to apply his talent and determination, so he ended up on a different continent. But what about those who can’t leave? What is there for them? It is an absolute tragedy.
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Speaking of dissidents in the former USSR.
http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2014/12/azerbaijani-political-prisoner-leyla.html
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\ Russian neo-Nazis hate Stalin and Chechens equally. Navalny got famous with the slogan “Let’s stop feeding the Caucasus. ”
Are they for letting Chechnya to become independent, separate from Russia?
What is their plan, and how (un)realistic it is?
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“Are they for letting Chechnya to become independent, separate from Russia?
What is their plan, and how (un)realistic it is?”
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