Good morning,
John Gruber and I had a good discussion on Dithering this morning about the impact of Twitter on the world’s response to the situation in Ukraine, building on yesterday’s Daily Update.
On to the update:
Facebook and Google Block Russian State Media
Speaking of yesterday’s Update, that was a fast reversal; from the Washington Post:
Major social media companies including YouTube, Facebook and TikTok moved to ban Russian state media outlets in Europe, blocking Moscow’s biggest megaphone for influencing public opinion about the war in Ukraine in a critical region on its borders. The moves by the social media giants came after mounting pressure from the European Commission, the Ukrainian government, some U.S. politicians, and their own employees. The moves are likely to provoke retaliation from Russia, which has already restricted social media services in response to previous measures the companies have taken to curtail the Kremlin’s ability to spread misinformation and propaganda about its invasion of Ukraine.
Nick Clegg explained on Twitter:
Clegg is saying the quiet part out loud, and I appreciate it: I have long maintained that it is a fool’s errand for these platforms to pretend like the same guidelines that apply to normal users also apply to accounts like Donald Trump’s or, in this case, to publications like Russian state media in the middle of a Russian invasion. Claiming that is the case simply degrades whatever legitimacy or principle or consistency is behind said guidelines. A couple of further observations:
I did take note of these retweets from Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri and Head of WhatsApp Will Cathcart:
Mykhailo Fedorov is Ukraine’s First Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, and a consistent advocate for tech platforms to act on Ukraine’s behalf; in this case one certainly gets the impression that Facebook is enjoying being on the side of overwhelming sentiment on the West, particularly the media. I think it’s safe to say that Clegg is telling the truth about Facebook’s intentions going forward.
That noted, it’s worth repeating the point I made during the summer of 2020, when Facebook was in a different position:
I mentioned it above, but yes, I believe in the “more speech” approach to discovering the truth. Before you groan, though, note that there are several ways to argue this point. One is the philosophical one, which is usually made in forums like this; it makes intellectual sense, but I get that it is tiresome, and I recognize the privilege arguments that are often raised in opposition. That, though, is why the phenomenon I described yesterday is so revelatory: the capacity to, at a moment’s notice, film police brutality and broadcast it to the entire world is one of most astounding examples of “more speech” that there has ever been. It is very hard, if you are being intellectually honest, to jump from “these social-media delivered phone camera videos of suppression by the state are evidence of systemic racism” to “a central authority figure should determine what is or is not true”; more speech and fewer gatekeepers empower the marginalized at the expense of those with power.
I would observe that a similar dynamic applies in this case: I noted yesterday how essential social media has been to dramatically shifting global sentiment about Ukraine, to the point where several European countries are making deep-rooted philosophical shifts overnight; it remains fascinating to me how folks in one breath celebrate that effect and, in the next, call for censorship — ideally after “work[ing] closely with Governments.”
Third, another tweet from Fedorov:
I am not, to be clear, going to begrudge Fedorov any of his requests; I think, though, that Meta is correct in their justification for continuing to operate in Russia. Clegg tweeted:
Social media is, by definition, publishing by the people; it’s the antithesis of top down information control. This is not a moral judgment at all — a lot more information means a lot more misinformation — just an observation about how it works. To that end, it certainly seems that in a country with strict control of top down information that social media is more likely to be a corrective to the dominant narrative, which is going to exist regardless! This is precisely why China keeps such strict control over social media within its borders: the goal isn’t to win on social media, it’s to take it off the battlefield, as it were.
Given this, Facebook being available in Russia seems like a net win, and, by the way, I would question exactly what effect banning Russian state media in the E.U. will actually have on this conflict; it seems clear that Russia is losing the battle of public opinion to a degree that no number of pro-Russia articles could undo. It doesn’t matter either way in the short term, but I do worry about the long-term: if Facebook is clearly following the government’s lead in the E.U., it is going to be difficult to see how the company stands up to other governments in the future, even if their requests are more problematic to the readers of this newsletter.
Crypto Exchanges and Sanctions
From Decrypt:
Coinbase “will not institute a blanket ban on all Coinbase transactions involving Russian addresses,” despite a request from a Ukrainian government official to do so. A spokesperson for the popular U.S.-based exchange told Decrypt, “A unilateral and total ban would punish ordinary Russian citizens who are enduring historic currency destabilization as a result of their government’s aggression against a democratic neighbor”…
Over the weekend, Ukraine’s country’s vice prime minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, publicly appealed to “all major crypto exchanges to block addresses of Russian users.” Fedorov tweeted in English: “It’s crucial to freeze not only the addresses linked to Russian and Belarusian politicians, but also to sabotage ordinary users.”
Coinbase joins a list of other cryptocurrency exchanges that have declined to meet the Ukrainian government’s request. Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume, told CNBC on Monday: “Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe. To unilaterally decide to ban people’s access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists.” Kraken CEO Jesse Powell wrote on Twitter, “Our mission is better served by focusing on individual needs above those of any government or political faction. The People’s Money is an exit strategy for humans, a weapon for peace, not for war”…
Most, including Powell, however, make clear that they’ll comply with sanctions if they are expanded to individual citizens. Coinbase, which is not available to Russian users, nonetheless doesn’t restrict its clients from transacting with Russia-based addresses. The spokesperson said, “We will continue to implement all sanctions that have been imposed, including blocking accounts and transactions that may involve sanctioned individuals or entities.”
The position of the exchanges led to a host of snark along the lines of this tweet by Matt Stoller:
Set aside this snark for a moment, and, if you can, the specifics of the current situation, and I think there is a very interesting point to make about the structure of crypto, particularly in relation to the social media giants like Meta. Last month I pointed out that Aggregation Theory applies to web3 too; if anything, the more fluid a marketplace, the stronger the forces of centralization are. At the same time, keep in mind that Aggregators are fundamentally different than platforms: the former win by attracting users but then have to keep them; the latter attract users in the beginning but then achieve technical lock-in.
In this specific case crypto, particularly Bitcoin, is quite liquid; users can quite easily move their holdings to other wallets, including self-managed ones. At the same time, the user experience and convenience of centralized platforms like Coinbase or Binance are very attractive; the more that they attract and keep users, the more powerful and valuable they are (this is why the big crypto advertisers at events like the Super Bowl were exchanges). To that end, every crypto exchange is certainly motivated to some extent by philosophical beliefs about crypto; they are also very much motivated by the reality of their market, wherein unilateral bans — above and beyond specific government orders — would likely lead to a revolt amongst their users who can very easily go elsewhere, taking their crypto holdings with them.
In other words, sure, there are jokes to be made about crypto’s use cases, but at the same time this is also an affirmation of the structural argument made by many crypto backers: even centralized entities like Coinbase will take a different tack than a company like Meta precisely because the nature of crypto is that no one owns the blockchain, which means their hold on users comes with zero lock-in.
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