Op-Ed: Wagner Group recruiting on social media? What about high-risk liabilities?

The Wagner group has spearheaded the months-long Russian assault on Bakhmut – Copyright Venezuelan Presidency/AFP Handout

Russia’s not-very-charming Wagner Group seems determined to keep generating ambiguous headlines. The latest news about the group includes this not-overly-well-covered bit of information about it recruiting on social media.

It’s not really all that surprising, but it is indicative of the state of Wagner to some extent. You’d think that a privileged mercenary group with connections to the top could at least “borrow” people if it needs them.

The current ads on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere are said to be asking for medics, psychologists, and drone operators. Structurally, this means Wagner is effectively repopulating its services troops. How do you run out of psychologists, of all things? Wear and tear?

Wagner Group withdrew rather suddenly from Bakhmut after announcing “victory” in capturing the town. Unconfirmed and uninformative commentary from the group itself suggests it may have taken up to 20,000 casualties in the process. That’s quite an admission.

That’s a lot of casualties, too. Publicly available information isn’t too reliable, but the strength of Wagner on Wikipedia is listed as “6,000 to 8,000”. …And they took 20,000 casualties?

It’s unlikely the entire force was actually wiped out two or three times despite a lot of obvious turnover. The group remained actively in combat for months. If this number is anything like accurate, they must have been simply feeding in their well-publicized recruits over the entire period.

This overall situation raises more than a few questions:

Expecting social media to spot an innocuous job ad and instantly connect it to Wagner is unreasonable. If they do spot it, what can they do about it?

It’s unclear if Wagner is specifically sanctioned. Some individuals are, but what about the group?

If they are, do social media platforms automatically remove the ads on that basis? If not, why not?

They’re advertising in multiple languages, being a multinational group. What are these jurisdictions supposed to do about it?

Why would Wagner be so visible, virtually advertising their weaknesses? Seems unlikely.

Social media famously doesn’t want to get involved in anything. Realistically, what can social media do about ads from innocuous third parties acting for Wagner?

Social media seems a bit clumsy as a recruiting option, particularly outside Russia. Why do it this way? Bait for foreign intelligence services, perhaps?

Can a nation hold a social media platform legally liable for recruiting war criminals? That could happen, given the depth of the issue in Ukraine.

Far more seriously as though it wasn’t serious enough – This is unlikely to be a one-off problem for social media. A “Craigslist for Atrocities” leaves a lot to be desired. Some sort of default rule needs to be in place.

Something like “No mass murderers allowed” in the Terms of Service would help. Or “Advertising for participants in crimes against humanity not permitted”, maybe?

This could well come back to bite the big platforms in particular. Take a good look in the mirror, social media.  …Or a court just might.

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Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.