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.

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A Russian court imposed a fine on US messenger service WhatsApp on Thursday for failing to delete banned content.

The three-million-rouble ($37,000) fine was the first imposed on WhatsApp for such an offence.

WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, was banned and branded “extremist” by Russian authorities last year.

Meta’s other platforms, Facebook and Instagram, were blocked in Russia along with Twitter, but WhatsApp remained accessible.

WhatsApp was punished for failing to remove a chat group that offered an anti-depressant whose sale is forbidden in Russia, according to Russian news agencies.

Google, Twitter, TikTok and another messaging app, Telegram, have been fined for failing to delete illegal content in the past.

WhatsApp was previously fined for not keeping the data of Russian users on servers located in Russia, which violates local rules.

bur/clc/lth/bp

Here we go again.

With California considering a new ‘Journalism Preservation Act’, which would essentially force Meta to pay for news content that users share on Facebook, Meta has threatened to ban news content entirely in the state – which is now a common refrain for Meta in such circumstances.

California’s Journalism Preservation Act aims to address imbalances in the digital advertising sector by forcing Meta to share a cut of its revenue with local publishers. The central argument is that Facebook benefits from increased engagement as a result of news content, and thus gains ad revenue as a result, as Facebook users share and discuss news content via links.

But the flaw here, as Meta has repeatedly argued – when Australia implemented its similar News Bargaining Code in 2021, and when Canada proposed its own variation – is that Meta doesn’t actually glean as much value from publishers as they do from Facebook, despite what the media players continue to project.

As per Meta spokesman Andy Stone:

As noted, the basis for all of these proposals is that Meta benefits from publisher content, so it should also pay to use it. But with Meta’s own insights showing that total views of posts with links (in the US) have declined by almost half over the last two years, the numbers show that Facebook is actually becoming increasingly less reliant on such over time.

Still, that hasn’t stopped the big players from pushing for reforms, and using their influence over political parties to seek more money, as their own income streams continue to dry up due to evolving consumption shifts.

Which has, of course, benefited online platforms, and over time, Meta and Google have gradually eaten up more and more ad market share, squeezing out the competition.

That leaves less money for publishers, which means less money for journalists, and thus, less comprehensive and informative local media ecosystems.

The basis for further investment in local voices makes sense – but the idea that Meta should be the one funding it is flawed, and always has been in every application of this approach.

Yet despite its protests, when Meta has been forced to concede, local media groups have benefited.

In Australia, for example, where Meta did actually ban news content for a time, before re-negotiating terms of the proposal, the Australian Government has since touted the success of the initiative, claiming that over 30 commercial agreements have been established between Google and Meta and Australian news businesses, which has seen over $AU200 million being re-distributed to local media providers annually.  

Really, Meta probably should have stood its ground, and refused to pay at all, because even in a watered-down variation of this proposal, millions has filtered through to publishers, which is what’s empowered Canada and now California to try their hand at the same.

But it remains a flawed approach, which, if anything, will only prompt Meta to phase out news content even more, as it continues to focus on entertainment, largely driven by Reels engagement.

Meta actually sought to cut political content from user feeds entirely over the past year, but has since eased back on that push, after user feedback showed that despite political posts causing angst and argument, people do still want some political discussion in the app.

But it’s in clear decline, which means that Meta needs news posts less and less, as the broader focus for social apps moves more towards content discovery, and away from perspective sharing.

Which means that California, and Canada, are in increasingly weaker positions as they seek to negotiate these deals.

It could be difficult for Meta to initiate a state-wide ban on news content, but I do think that they could, and would do so, if push comes to shove.

Which will only hurt local news publishers through reduced traffic – and it’ll be interesting to see if California and Canada do seek to enact these revenue share pushes, despite Meta’s threats.