The many (online) deaths of Vladimir Putin

You don’t need to mark the Ides of March to know that this, historically, is a tricky month for tyrants – especially those hailing from Russia. Stalin last combed his moustache in March, as did Nicholas II. It was probably prudent, then, that Meta – the company replacing Facebook as the online behemoth to loathe – has now decreed that it won’t permit users to call for the death of Vladimir Putin, after easing its hate speech policy to allow users in Ukraine to make threats to the Russian military. Not in March. Not in any month. Nyet.

It is the one glimmer of good news in an otherwise bleak week. At least one company has retained the moral high ground by preventing users from expressing their profound hope that the Kremlin’s invader-in-chief succumbs to an assassin’s bullet, perhaps placed an inch behind his ear, as soon as possible. There should be no place in our media, however free it is, for people encouraging those around Putin to take a knife to him, even if opening the carotid artery is apparently the quickest way to secure world peace.

To suggest that would be terrible.

So well done Meta for setting us an example at this difficult time.

Emotions run high – of course they do – but we should all stand behind Meta’s noble effort to stop people saying how welcome it would be if somebody strung Putin up by his neck, immediately following a six-foot drop which is ideal for a man of his height and weight. But Meta should not stop there. This sensible prohibition needs to extend to suggestions involving meat grinders, agricultural machinery, and industrial furnaces. We need to send out a firm message that we’re not awaiting news of a “tragic” incident at a meat processing facility in central St Petersburg. No “accidental” tripping down the stairs, sending Vlad arcing into a pulping machine currently making potted borsht. Not even a simple gardening accident, involving an upturned garden rake and a pond filled, in the best Bond villain tradition, with highly suggestible KGB piranhas.

I think we can agree, we’re all so much better than that.

There’s also a lesson to be learned here about self-control. You simply cannot go around expressing the hope – however well-intentioned – that Russian dictators fall under the wheels of Soviet-era tractors, crushing their lower bodies in ways that ensure they live long enough to understand the suffering they’ve inflicted on the peoples of Ukraine, Georgia, Syria, Chechnya, and, of course, poor Russia itself. There’s only one person demeaned in these circumstances and it’s the person who speculates about feral Siberian wolves, the tiger enclosure at Moscow City Zoo, or a midnight ritual involving oligarchs consumed by Botox and blood lust.

Freak speedboat accidents are too much to speculate about, even if twin 400 horsepower engines would ease world tensions in seconds.

So, no more talk about pits of alligators. Export bans alone put pay to that idea.

You certainly wouldn’t wish your worse enemy to be eviscerated with rusty spoons. Not when you have drawers filled with rusty forks. 

No. Let’s also put an end to talk of falling out of windows or leaps from balconies, even if both would have a certain poetic justice about them. And, please, no mention of poisonings by something truly nasty. A nerve agent would be too good for him, so no suggesting that he ingests Novichok, even if you knew where to find some (top drawer, Kremlin office desk). Meta should also apply a filter to “polonium”, as used to kill Alexander Litvinenko. It would be a horrific way to die, so nobody should go spiking the drink of the man responsible for the bombing of maternity hospitals (a little at a time so he doesn’t detect it until it’s too late). They should also not promote the bounty of a million dollars that’s been placed on Putin’s head by a Russian businessman, Alex Konanykhin, or suggest ways of collecting it (perhaps telephoning one of his companies on 212-202-0793 would be the way to start but don’t forget to dial +1 for the US).

Let us instead put all this talk behind us and concentrate on diplomatic alternatives rather than getting trapped in wishful thinking that Putin dies like a rabid dog cast into the deepest ditch that history can afford this pathetic, priapic, Formica-obsessed thug from darker times. Meta should be praised for limiting us to saying the only thing left to say, which is to wish Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin a long and happy life (wink-wink).