In general, I back more rather than less freedom on social media, but there are exceptions. One of them is a lot more niche than it should be. I take the humble view that social media platforms, and social media users, should not be hosting and incentivising war crimes.

Reading the Geneva Conventions — those milestones in our often futile attempts to improve ourselves — one finds the point that prisoners of war “must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity”. Nowadays, the addition of “public curiosity” is being widely neglected — or obscured.

Browsing social media, one finds instance after instance of prisoners of war being interviewed by their captors. The Ukrainians have been doing it to Russian prisoners since the beginning of the war. Mainstream outlets would even report on the *ahem* information that the Russian prisoners were offering up. I objected at the time, but few others made a point of doing so. Ukrainian media outlets are still featuring Russian prisoners as they talk about their alleged atrocities.

Of course, the Russians do it as well. Infamously, the British pro-Kremlin troll Graham Phillips interrogated the British national Aiden Aslin after he had been captured fighting for Ukraine. Aslin was recorded spreading Russian propaganda lines — and agreeing with Phillips that he was not speaking under duress (well, that settles it).

Despicably, Hamas has published propaganda featuring “interviews” with Israeli hostages — some of whom are purely civilians and not even prisoners of war. Pro-Palestine propagandists on social media still host this disgraceful footage. But Israel has also published interrogation footage.

Releasing these videos is wrong, and potentially illegal, in itself. But we also have to think about what lies behind them. Strictly speaking, it is possible that a prisoner of war would choose by his own volition to condemn his own leaders or hold forth in detail about the crimes he has committed. Conversions exist. But it seems a lot more likely that prisoners are speaking under the threat of pain or death. We know from Aiden Aslin that he was beaten and tortured by his Russian captors. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, meanwhile, notes that in videos of Ukrainian prisoners being “compelled to disparage their command and comrades … some POWs had visible signs of bruises”.

Credible evidence suggests that the Ukrainians have tortured Russians too. Certainly, it explains the Russian POWs’ divulgences more plausibly than religious enlightenment. It is not at all difficult for me to believe that Russians engage in atrocities. It seems more improbable that they would volunteer to talk about them.

Of course, Hamas have tortured hostages. But evidence suggests that Israel may be torturing prisoners as well. The OHCHR received testimony suggesting the use of “waterboarding and the release of dogs”. Even if it is possible that prisoners are not speaking under duress, then, I think our assumption should be that they are.

Some amount of torture will be carried out for as long as wars exist. There is no such thing as a “clean” conflict. Yet wars can be more and less barbaric — and our social media consumption encourages barbarism. When people delude themselves into thinking that the soldiers, or civilians, of rival nations have organically chosen to insult or incriminate their own armed forces, it incentivises more beatings and more threats of death. Confirmation bias puts a fig leaf on our humanity.

British allies should be encouraged not to indulge in these activities — and all sides should have their propaganda removed from social media platforms, to diminish its impact and the incentive to create it. If nothing else, it’s not free speech if you’re being forced to say something.