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Put simply, Facebook is not making any pretense of being balanced and impartial. The big tech corporation has hired someone as biased as possible, a hardline right-wing nationalist with extensive experience working in the Ukrainian government.

In doing so, the company is breaking down the separation between social media and state.

Social media IS the state.

On social media, Kateryna Kruk proudly identifies herself as a “Euromaidan activist,” referencing the US government-backed 2013 and 2014 movement to oust Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

https://thegrayzone.com/2019/06/04/facebook-public-policy-manager-ukraine-kateryna-kruk/

By Ben Norton

When Facebook hired a new public policy manager for Ukraine, the mega-corporation chose one of the most biased candidates possible: a hawkish jingoist who has worked extensively with the Ukrainian government and the European Union.

Kateryna Kruk, who has served as Facebook’s first public policy manager for Ukraine since late May, was an active participant in Ukraine’s 2014 US-backed coup, in which far-right ultra-nationalists violently ousted a democratically elected government accused by the West of getting too close to Russia and replaced it with a pro-NATO one.

During the coup, Kruk volunteered with the fascistic Svoboda party, and defended the extreme-right group from criticism. She is a nationalist hardliner who compares Russian President Vladimir Putin to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, reduces all pro-Russian forces in Ukraine to “terrorists,” and opposes any kind of negotiations with Moscow.

Facebook’s new public policy manager for Ukraine publicly cheered when Turkey shot down a Russian plane, has called for martial law, and claims that Russians are incapable of keeping promises. She has even gone so far as to refer to the Kremlin as a “terrorist organization.”

An investigation by The Grayzone found that Kateryna Kruk said she “thanked” and “blessed” a boy who joined the Ukrainian neo-Nazi militia known as the Azov Battalion. She also gloated over fascist violence against Ukrainian communist politicians, and repeatedly called for the Communist Party of Ukraine to be banned.

The fact that someone with these extreme political views will be policing content for Facebook is already troubling, and raises concerns about whether she will censor sources that she disagrees with. But Kruk’s recent work history presents even more questions about bias and potential conflicts of interest.

The Ukrainian government’s favorite info-warrior…

This is not the first time Facebook has worked with figures closely linked to governments. The company has already been working with the Atlantic Council — a belligerent think tank funded by Western governments, NATO, the EU, and Gulf monarchies — to police content, raising concerns over threats to press freedom.

Facebook also partnered with the neoconservative pro-war website the Weekly Standard to “fact check.”

But the social media giant’s latest hire may be the most shocking scandal yet.

Kateryna Kruk announced her new job on the night of June 3, and then locked her Twitter account the next day.

But it was too late. Before she hid her tweets, The Grayzone had already archived many of them.

The following investigation exposes the extreme views of Facebook’s new public policy manager for Ukraine.

Links to Ukrainian fascist and far-right groups

On social media, Kateryna Kruk proudly identifies herself as a “Euromaidan activist,” referencing the US government-backed 2013 and 2014 movement to oust Ukraine’s democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych…

In these pro-EU protests, Kruk was closely linked to extremist ultranationalist groups. In fact, Kruk was featured in a 2014 article in The Nation that profiled the far-right xenophobic Ukrainians who served as the vanguard for that year’s coup.

The Nation identified Kruk simply as a “Svoboda volunteer.” Kruk told the magazine, “There are people who don’t support Svoboda because of some of their slogans, but they know it’s the most active political party and go to them for help.”

Kruk implicitly acknowledged that Svoboda is an extremist group, telling The Nation she “would be very concerned” if the fascist party won a majority in parliament. But she still proudly volunteered with it because she appreciated “the idea of a party that is Ukrainian-focused.”

Svoboda is not only fascistic in its contemporary form; the party has a direct lineage to neo-Nazism. Founded as a rebranding of the openly fascist Social-National Party of Ukraine, its longtime leader, Oleh Tyahnybok, has been captured sieg heiling in photos, and has delivered blatantly anti-Semitic speeches in which he called for Ukrainians to fight the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” and to stop the supposed “criminal activities” of “organized Jewry.”…

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