Who's more against creating light? Trump, Putin, Meta, performing artists, Spotify?

In my Apple news feed yesterday was a report that Donald Trump's Truth Social answer to his being banned from Facebook and Twitter is a complete flop.

In my Apple news feed this morning:

Russia demands that U.S. stop Meta's "extremist activities"

March 10 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (FB.O) will allow Facebook and Instagram users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion, according to internal emails seen by Reuters on Thursday, in a temporary change to its hate speech policy.

The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators.

"As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

The calls for the leaders' deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company's rules on violence and incitement.

Citing the Reuters story, Russia's embassy in the United States demanded that Washington stop the "extremist activities" of Meta.

"Users of Facebook & Instagram did not give the owners of these platforms the right to determine the criteria of truth and pit nations against each other," the embassy said on Twitter in a message that was also shared by their India office.

The temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, according to one email.

In the email recently sent to moderators, Meta highlighted a change in its hate speech policy pertaining both to Russian soldiers and to Russians in the context of the invasion.

"We are issuing a spirit-of-the-policy allowance to allow T1 violent speech that would otherwise be removed under the Hate Speech policy when: (a) targeting Russian soldiers, EXCEPT prisoners of war, or (b) targeting Russians where it's clear that the context is the Russian invasion of Ukraine (e.g., content mentions the invasion, self-defense, etc.)," it said in the email.

"We are doing this because we have observed that in this specific context, 'Russian soldiers' is being used as a proxy for the Russian military. The Hate Speech policy continues to prohibit attacks on Russians," the email stated.

Last week, Russia said it was banning Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform. Moscow has cracked down on tech companies, including Twitter (TWTR.N), which said it is restricted in the country, during its invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a "special operation."

Many major social media platforms have announced new content restrictions around the conflict, including blocking Russian state media RT and Sputnik in the European Union, and have demonstrated carve-outs in some of their policies during the war.

Emails also showed that Meta would allow praise of the right-wing Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited, in a change first reported by The Intercept.

The Meta spokesperson previously said the company was "for the time being, making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard."

Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi and Elizabeth Culliford in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Stephen Coates, Shri Navaratnam and Kim Coghill

Facebook terminated my account after I published that a good friend, Republican, U.S. Army Special Forces combat veteran, voted for Donald Trump, had told me that the people who invaded the U.S. Capitol all should have been shot dead. But, my good friend did not say the Capitol invader's leader should be shot dead.

That, and many other spontaneous musings, were aired on a free, anonymous, add-free human and metaphysical audio podcast an acquaintance had constructed, which was gaining listeners world-wide. 

By and by, the acquaintance reported a dream in which he saw me with a paint brush painting something of many beautiful colors on a canvas, and he heard in the dream, "Sloan is creating light."

The podcast already was banned by Russia and Belarus and parts of India. 

Then came the Joe Rogan flap, which looked to me like a head way up where the sun never shines tempest in a tea pot. Lots of performing artists threatened to leave Spotify, which kept Rogan and lost the performing artists.  

Spotify also took and down our and hundreds of other people's spontaneous podcasts, which had nothing to do with Rogan and the performing artists. 

Spotify offered to let us continue our podcast, if we submitted written scripts for review ahead of time.

So much for creating light.

So how about Vladimir Putin, Spotify, Meta, Donald Trump, the performing artists, and lots of other people, prominent or not, paste this on their bathroom mirror and leave it there for the rest of time?

sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com