Meta comms chief handed six-year Russian prison sentence for 'justifying terrorism'

Meta’s communications director Andy Stone has been sentenced in absentia to six years imprisonment in Russia for "justifying terrorism." Meta was declared an extremist organization by Russia two years ago after the social media website refused to moderate posts calling for the death of Russian soldiers invading Ukraine. And …

[lglethal]

"she would appeal the conviction – for all the good that'll do."

She gets paid. She ties up court time, preventing them from sentencing innocent peaceful protestors, and costs the court and prosecution time and money.

It's not much, but every little helps...

[Casca]

What a shit stain of a country

[David 132]

Honestly, I think "being found guilty of something by a Russian kangaroo court" is a badge of honour these days, rather like being declared persona non grata by the North Korean regime or <Godwin>whoever that chap was who led Germany in the 1930s/40s </Godwin>.

[naive]

Dozens ended up on a government backed Ukranian kill list for much less, without any legal procedures.

Being convicted by a Russian court based on laws and multiple requests for retraction of images which are terrible for the families of the soldiers, is how the legal system in a developed country is supposed to work. The silver lining is that developments on the front are such that the Ukrainian legal system can potentially advance to this level within a few months.

[Anonymous Coward]

when you've stopped kissing putins arse and go suck putins dick like MTG. GTFO

[Casca]

Poor little vatnik

[Anonymous Coward]

oh look a Ruzzian shill

[Dan 55]

Username checks out.

[Anonymous Coward]

And after the way the USA treated Snowden. Assange and others for whistleblowing? (death penalty potentially or life in prison) Also a shit stain, but just not quite in the same league.

[elsergiovolador]

Nice try Vladimir

"And you are lynching Negroes" (Russian: "А у вас негров вешают", romanized: A u vas negrov veshaut; which also means "Yet, in your [country], [they] hang Negroes") is a catchphrase that describes or satirizes Soviet responses to US criticisms of Soviet human rights violations.

[Anonymous Coward]

That argument is a bit of a paper tiger.

I'm not talking about things that happened last century, I'm talking about something that's happening right now.

Of course human rights violations are much much worse in Russia. I certainly won't be going there for holidays, as I might love it so much I'll never come back.

I'm a big fan of free speech, and if people are calling out the horrors going on in Ukraine that might go some way to stopping it, assuming enough people actually care and are outraged by it.

Likewise when Snowden called out some of the things that the USA were getting up to, that might stop them. Although looking at the bill that's just passed to extend their snooping powers on American citizens (written about today on this very site), it seems that not enough people actually care. At least it's legal now.

This hardly makes me a Vatnik, but just pointing out that we in The West should hold ourselves to a standard that we expect of the rest of the world. Otherwise it makes it hard to criticise them.

[elsergiovolador]

Nah, it's the same thing. Russia never changes.

As Pyotr Vyazemsky duly noted: "As If I fall asleep, wake up 100 years later and somebody asks me, what is going on in Russia, my immediate answer will be: drinking and stealing.", but he probably forgot to add "genocide and rape".

[Anonymous Coward]

What's worse?

Genocide and rape vs. proxy wars and coups? Unfortunately the proxy wars and coups also involve genocide and rape, but we don't get to hear about it until 40+ years later when documents get declassified. And stealing? It's institutionalised in the USA and happens on a much larger scale. But it's the establishment doing the stealing, so they do a pretty good job of covering it up.

[Casca]

Good of you dragging up things from the past...

[Andy The Hat]

a familiar judicial system?

Is the Russian system based on the Cardassian one?

Whatever happens, if the appeal is lodged and creates lots of publicity in the West it's possible that some will filter eastwards ...

[elsergiovolador]

Re: a familiar judicial system?

These things create a lot of wind that might defenestrate the appellant.

[Anonymous Coward]

To the gallows

Outrageous! We should express our opposition by boycotting the import of Russian goods, in IT for example, Russian computers (what?), Russian networking kit (huh?), smartphones (hmmm?), and other industrial products like cars (?), trucks (??), tractors (???), furniture (????), fashionable clothing (?????), prepared foods (??????) ... well, it's gonna be a rough ride! Can we swap Stone for Edward Snowden then?

[Geoff Campbell]

Re: To the gallows

Well, we could start by not buying Russian oil and gas. Even the stuff they send through other countries.

GJC

[F. Frederick Skitty]

Re: To the gallows

Ukraine is doing a good job of shutting off Russian petrochemical exports at source. They are hitting the most sophisticated parts of Russia's oil refineries, which are impossible to repair as they were built by Western specialists with precision parts that are now sanctioned.

As well as limiting fuel supplies to the military, it will also leave Russia with only crude oil exports, which are mostly routed through a couple of very vulnerable pipelines. One of those pipelines has already been damaged in a previous attack, so expect to see them targeted again.

[Steve Button]

Re: To the gallows

and also putting some pressure on friendly countries like India to stop buying the stuff from them. Otherwise it doesn't really work.

[Bebu]

Kangaroo court....

I am sure Skippy would not be in anyway happy about his kind being associated with the travesty that passes for a judiciary in the Russian Federation.

Just waiting for la Pute to come out with “The Americans cannot build aeroplanes. They are very good at refrigerators and razor blades." Unfortunately he would be right Boeings, probably about the fridges but surely they still make razor blades in the US.

Just recently I had to explain why in our (common law) juridiction why an accused cannot be tried in absentia.

Perhaps the US could convene a special military commission to try and sentence the members of the Russian tribunal to similar terms of incarceration (in the Gitmo Hilton.:)

[Tubz]

Good luck to Russian justice holding Meta accountable, the west has been trying for decades and failed.

[The Oncoming Scorn]

Russian Reversal

In Soviet Russia, Russia jails Facebook.

[JessicaRabbit]

Maybe I'm just a hippie but I don't think social media platforms should allow people to call for the death of anybody. Obviously what Russia has been doing is wrong and the things its been doing is frankly disgustinng. Them complaining about it is the height of hypocrisy but still, you can protest without inciting violence.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd tend to agree in general, but when the targets of these posts are soldiers, and the violence being called for is the military response against the actions of those soldiers, I'd argue that they're fair game. I doubt Ukraine's defences would have held out this long if they'd only been sending peaceful protesters to the front lines.

[JessicaRabbit]

Well sort of, there is such a thing as prisoners of war and those guilty of war crimes are, to my knowledege, locked up not executed. Also I don't know if it was specific soldiers that were being targetted by the users of Meta but keep in mind some of these soldiers are conscripts with no choice but to fight in Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. They're not all war criminals.

[mark l 2]

So are we classing the comments section on El Reg as social media? Because I really wanted to write about i really hope Putin catches Ebola or some other nasty disease and dies a slow and painful death, but I don't use Facebook, Twitter or any other social media app to write it on there.