#15 – Social Media Postings, part 3; Global MP of Shearman & Sterling’s contribution
George Casey, a Ukrainian American, adds his voice to the discussion
This week I give over the entire issue of Practical Counsel to an extended essay by George Casey, Global Managing Partner of Shearman & Sterling.
George is a Ukrainian American, who has commented extensively on the War in Ukraine on LinkedIn. There can be no more appropriate person to conclude this three part discussion than George.
It has been a pleasure to get to know George through engaging with him on the topic under discussion. George is a proud Ukrainian – and a man of great moral integrity, who has chosen to speak out unambiguously and with powerful moral clarity about the war in Ukraine.
I raised a series of questions in last week’s issue of Practical Counsel. It is for my readers to judge whether George has answered those questions in his essay. And I feel that it is entirely appropriate that a Ukrainian should have the final say in this discussion – at least as far as contributions in the body of the newsletter are concerned.
Next issue I will turn to another completely unrelated topic. I will leave this topic with a renewed respect for some of the senior leaders of the legal profession. Regardless of whether I agree with every word that George writes, I am humbled by his moral clarity and his decision to write what he has written, day in day out, on LinkedIn, since Russia invaded a sovereign state, his homeland, Ukraine on February 24th, 2022.
Would that our political leaders acted with such moral clarity, and would that they expressed themselves as fearlessly.
Enjoy reading, and please comment and contribute to the debate by posting direct on Practical Counsel. Also, please write in with your unique people issues to me (practicalcounsel@substack.com) - I unequivocally undertake never to reveal your identity and will change key details of your situation so as to preserve your confidentiality and anonymity (unless you don’t want this). I also undertake to write to you personally with my own thoughts and comments on your situation and am always happy to follow up with a call on Zoom or similar.
The War in Ukraine and Corporate Social Media Policies
An Extended Essay, by George Casey
I agreed to write the third article in Practical Counsel’s series on corporate social media policies in the context of the war in Ukraine. Specifically, I am writing in support of the first article in this series written by Ukrainian General Counsel, Iryna Kravtsova, and to add to the voices of Iryna, her colleagues in the association of Ukrainian General Counsel, and my fellow Ukrainians, who at times feel that their voices are not heard. I will also try to address the concerns raised by the author of the second article in this series. This article is written from the perspective of a Ukrainian American (with family in Ukraine) and is focused on the war in Ukraine in the context of corporate social media policies and is not intended to address or imply a position on the application of such policies with respect to other events, issues or matters (geopolitical or otherwise).
First, let’s explore social media policies and what they are designed to address. By now, most companies have implemented them. These policies play an important role, given that by some accounts about three quarters of the adult population interact with social media. Many corporate social media policies are guidelines — some people call them guardrails — that recognize the desire of employees to be involved in social media and often encourage the employees’ involvement consistent with the guidelines.
Corporate social media policies very often have a laudable prohibition on offensive content and inappropriate behavior. Policies also remind employees of the need to protect confidential information, to be respectful of the views of others who post, etc. Many corporate social media policies or practices recognize that voices that have historically not been heard, voices of those who have been disadvantaged, underprivileged, oppressed, or discriminated against, should be encouraged to speak and should be heard. Overall, social media policies are meant to help companies enhance their reputation and avoid controversy or embarrassment due to employees’ posts.
Let’s now look at what the war in Ukraine means in the context of social media policies. The key point is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war is not a controversial topic in the usual sense of social media policies. When people write posts supporting Ukraine defending itself, this is not an “opinion” that might be offensive to others who may have a different point of view. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war is a historic manifestation of evil. Russia mounted a full invasion of Ukraine in flagrant violation of international law, to capture it, subjugate it, and to kill anyone who stood in its way. Opposing this invasion is not something that reasonable people would find offensive. Is the argument really that this might offend “opinions” that are in favor of war? With Russia launching dozens of cruise missiles daily into heavily populated Ukrainian cities, this argument is untenable.
We are living during times when the destiny of humanity could be determined by this war in Ukraine. Nuclear war is an existential threat to everyone, and the world is now closer to it than ever before. Russia uses the threat of nuclear war to subjugate the Ukrainian people, with more attacks to follow – unless it is stopped. As of the time of writing, Russia just threatened Finland using the same terminology it used on the eve of the war against Ukraine. A totalitarian regime, where all decisions are made by one person, is unhappy that democratic countries are making their choices through democratic processes. Should the world be silent?
Let’s take a closer look at what has been happening in Ukraine in the lead-up to, and since the beginning of, the war. Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity was brutally violated in 2014, when Russia occupied Crimea and Donbas. The world reacted, but the reaction was tame. Although sanctions were imposed, those sanctions did not alter Russia’s behavior. Ukraine was left alone facing an aggressor whose violence was accompanied by lies; the more violent the actions, the more preposterous the lies. Let’s remember the words of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: “To prop itself up, to appear decent, [violence] will without fail call forth its ally — Lies. For violence has nothing to cover itself with but lies, and lies can only persist through violence.”
The world saw this violent behavior from Russia before and after 2014 (for example, in Chechnya, Georgia and Syria). At its core, Russia’s unhappiness with Ukraine stems from the choice by the Ukrainian people to be free, for Ukraine to be independent from its former colonial master, to determine its own destiny and to be democratic. Imperialist Russia tried to impose its rule on Ukraine and install a leader it could control, which the Ukrainian nation rejected twice, in 2004 and 2014. The annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbas were Russia’s punishment of Ukraine for this rejection.
Undeterred by sanctions, Russia’s rulers used propaganda to lay the foundation for an invasion of Ukraine. Putin first published an essay in the summer of 2021 that became mandatory reading for the Russian military. The essay took the preposterous view that the Ukrainian nation does not exist, that it is one and the same as the Russian nation, just “ruled by Nazis,” that Ukraine is Russia’s land that has to be taken back, that Ukrainians do not have a right to have their own country, and that Ukraine was artificially created by a decree from Moscow when the Bolsheviks came to power. Needless to say, the essay -- written by a new imperialist ruler of an old colonial power -- has no basis in historical facts (a detailed discussion can be found here). The essay’s narrative conveniently disregarded Ukrainian history and the richness of Ukrainian culture and language, the language of Ukrainian poets, writers, philosophers, and people living throughout Ukraine over the centuries. This rich language, that Russian and Soviet colonial rulers were trying to suppress, was described in the essay as a vernacular dialect of the Russian language.
Very few people outside of Russia or Ukraine knew about the essay, and it was ignored or dismissed by the international community. Russian propaganda, in the meantime, was promoting the essay’s narrative and whipping up Russian chauvinism and hatred towards Ukraine. Through official channels and through online bots and trolls, the narrative got traction with some outside of Russia and with many inside Russia (based on an independent poll in March of this year, 83% of Russian population supported the war, and many have been openly condoning the atrocities of their soldiers in Ukraine). The voices of Ukrainians raising concerns were often not heard.
Moscow moved from propaganda to action, commencing with a military build-up in the Fall of 2021. The world noticed, debated what to do, but did little to prevent the preparation for war. The Ukrainian President, the Foreign Minister and other members of the Government pleaded with other governments not to wait for war to start before taking action (for example by imposing sanctions), because then it would be too late. However, decision-makers in the world’s capitals debated the issue and concluded that either Russia was just bluffing trying to negotiate, or, alternatively, that by acting early they would trigger war. Moreover, when world leaders made public statements indicating that they would not interfere, it was read in Moscow as weakness and providing carte blanche to continue. While Russia’s preparations were ongoing, diplomats and politicians often discussed Ukraine with their Russian counterparts, without Ukraine even being at the table. The impression at times was that the destiny of Ukraine was decided without Ukraine - it was being discussed with its former colonial power. Ukrainian voices again were often not heard.
Even when Russia fired the first cruise missiles on Ukrainian cities in the early hours of February 24, decision-makers on different sides of the political spectrum in the US, in Europe, and in other parts of the world, had a mixed reaction. Some said that Putin’s actions were “genius,” others said that the war against Ukraine was a result of Russia’s interests not being taken into account. Many said nothing at all. Sadly, as it turned out, many decision-makers thought Russia would take over Ukraine in 48 hours, so in a politician’s logic, why speak up?
This bloody and brutal war has now continued for almost three months. As it has done in the past, Russia is accompanying its violence with outrageous lies, and its propaganda machine works in overdrive to spread its lies in the press and on social media. Lies are focused on brainwashing people inside Russia and deterring action from the outside world, or at a minimum, creating enough confusion in the outside world to stir up a false debate and minimize interference. Russia is also trying hard to cover up the most unthinkable atrocities and absurdly trying to accuse Ukraine of committing them.
The muted response by world leaders helped create the impression among Ukrainians, particularly in the early days of the war, that their voices would once again not be heard. Ukrainians feared that their country would be sacrificed to appease the aggressor, just like Czechoslovakia was sacrificed to Hitler in 1938. Even now, you can hear an innocent but shocking question from a sympathetic person outside of Ukraine or Russia, saying “Why are Ukrainians fighting? They are the same people as the Russians, why don’t they just stop resisting and then the war will stop?”
Russia’s state-sponsored propaganda machine uses social media and fake news to create confusion and doubt about what Russia is actually doing in Ukraine. It is well publicized that Russia has built a massive social media army of trolls and bots that appear to be ordinary members of a social media community who are posting Russia’s false narrative all over the Internet, and whose main goal is to influence public opinion and decision-makers around the world.
All of this behavior results in a very substantial asymmetry of information. Ukrainians feel that they are trying to catch up all the time to tell what is actually happening, to have their voices break through the fog of disinformation and confusion, to tell about their pain, to tell about the unfathomable atrocities committed by Russian military personnel in Ukrainian towns, about the evacuees being shot at by Russian soldiers, about the deportation of more than 1.2 million Ukrainians, including at least 200,000 children, to “filtration camps” in Russia.
With all its challenges and drawbacks, social media is a means for Ukrainians to get their devastating story to the world. Without social media, there would be no effective means of countering Russia’s massive disinformation, which it uses as a weapon in the war.
Let’s assume there was a full prohibition on social media postings about the war in Ukraine. What would have happened then, given that often even the mainstream media first hears the news from social media postings? We would reasonably have to assume that public opinion across the world would have bought Russia’s narrative. Would the real story of what happened in Bucha have gotten out? Or would Russia’s preposterous narrative - that Ukrainians murdered civilians in Bucha to blame Russia - have carried the day and become accepted as truth? How does one counteract the constant flood of lies if the ability to communicate and share the account of witnesses is banned on social media?
In addition to Ukrainians, shouldn’t people around the world have the ability to show that they stand with Ukraine against the barbaric murderous behavior of Russia and its military, and raise their voices against the open threat of a nuclear attack? How can we possibly conclude that speaking out against this threat should be prohibited under corporate social media policies? If we ban people from using social media to speak against the war, it would be tantamount to saying that those who see a murderer who is killing a victim aren’t allowed to interfere to stop what they see. Are we all just bystanders in an unjust war that if not stopped in Ukraine, will claim the next victim and then the next?
Standing up for Ukraine and speaking out about this war on social media is not “virtue signaling.” The suggestion that people should stay silent and contribute in a more “productive” way does not reflect reality. I have seen many people who are doing everything they can to help: posting their support, sharing information, fundraising online, volunteering, doing pro bono work, opening their homes to refugees, and giving Ukrainian refugees jobs, among many other things. We see the best of humanity when there are so many people who are doing everything they can. As only one example, I met an amazing British lawyer on LinkedIn, who organized help for 45 Ukrainian refugees, drove them from the border, helped deliver several tons of aid, raised money for charities supporting Ukraine by running a marathon, all while raising awareness and adding his strong voice against the brutality and injustice of this war on LinkedIn.
Speaking out against the war and atrocities in Ukraine is not offensive to anyone other than the aggressor. If anything, we need to encourage Ukrainian people to speak on social media and to tell their story and to let all people of good-will show their support for Ukraine, a country that is paying an enormous price in this war just for the very right to exist and be free of its former colonial master.
George Casey
May 18, 2022
The author is Global Managing Partner of Shearman & Sterling LLP.
All rights reserved by the author. Published first on a non-exclusive basis in Practical Counsel.
And now …….
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A note for you picky lawyers; and a plea for tolerance
I am a British lawyer by background and went to both school and University in the UK. So my English is British English. I have taken a conscious decision to write this newsletter in British English, but to try to avoid phrases that aren’t common outside the UK. Sometimes, though, I’ll use a phrase that isn’t commonly used outside the UK, without realising that it is a Britishism. I also endeavour to use the vernacular spellings of my contributors (e.g. to use US spellings for a US contributor), but won’t always get this right.
My plea is for you to tolerate the British spellings and grammar and the occasional Britishism. And to focus on the substance of the newsletter rather than the occasional (to you) annoying turn of phrase, bit of grammar or unorthodox spelling, or the occasional inconsistency in spelling as between, for example, UK and US ‘standard’ spellings.
Thank you and best wishes,
Jonathan Middleburgh