Social Media and Armed Conflict
Is it ever OK to solicit money for lethal weapons on a social media platform?
Drones are now playing a central role in armed conflict. Often they’re first-person view (FPV) drones controlled through goggles. They’re more than just weapons, though, as video recordings get posted on social media for propaganda and fundraising purposes. Here’s an example:
The video shows the FPV drone zeroing in on an unmarked (allegedly Russian) surveillance drone and destroying it. This post promotes the good work being done by a military unit and thanks their donors.
A search on X using the prompt “donate ukraine russia conflict” produced lots of results with pleas for money. I haven’t donated, nor have I checked if any are scams. I only saw one post from the Russian side: ordinary people buying stocks of food to give to Russian troops.
In the next example, donors (over a certain sum) can get their names and messages painted onto an artillery shell, which, we are assured, will not target any civilians.
I wondered, then, how these calls (from anonymous accounts) to donate money towards lethal weapons fell within the policies of the X platform. Rather than go through their policy manual, I just asked Grok, and here’s the response:
According to Grok – X’s own AI – they have no policy on this. If the fundraising is for “a recognized military effort in a conflict”, then the platform’s policy is not clear. “It’s a gray area”.
X’s non-policy would become very murky when there’s a dispute over whether an armed group is a legitimate entity, under law of armed conflict, or a terrorist organisation.
The obvious next step was to prompt the X search engine with “donate israel palestine conflict”. This search drew a blank, but for one statement from Grok:
There are search results, however, for humanitarian organisations.
I invite readers to be the judges here. Many may fully support Ukraine’s self-defence effort. But is it OK to use X to raise funds for lethal weapons, no matter how legitimate the actor or the cause?
Why do we see such a radical difference in X’s search results on the two current conflicts? Is one conflict “complex” while the other is not?
To me this shows how depraved the West has become. Whether there are Russian sites for donations that are being blocked by Western platforms while permitting Ukrainian donation sites (probable) or whether it is an open market and only Ukrainian donation sites have popped up (improbable) the conclusion must make you feel sick. "Your either with us or against us" and only being with us is acceptable... Thought police and evil ones at that.