World News

Meta�s Speech Policy Update Permits Facebook and Instagram Users to call for Violence Against Russian Soldiers

Meta�s Speech Policy Update Permits Facebook and Instagram Users to call for Violence Against Russian Soldiers
World News

Meta�s Speech Policy Update Permits Facebook and Instagram Users to call for Violence Against Russian Soldiers

Meta�s Speech Policy Update Permits Facebook and Instagram Users to call for Violence Against Russian Soldiers

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Meta Platforms Facebook and Instagram will allow users in some countries to call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the Ukraine invasion in a temporary change to its hate speech policy observed in internal emails seen on Thursday.

The social media company is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President, Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, according to internal emails to its content moderators.

"As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.' We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

The calls for the leaders' deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company's rules on violence and incitement.

Citing the Reuters story, Russia's embassy in the United States demanded that Washington stop the "extremist activities" of Meta.

"Users of Facebook & Instagram did not give the owners of these platforms the right to determine the criteria of truth and pit nations against each other," the embassy said on Twitter in a message that was also shared by their India office.

The Kremlin also responded by cracking down on social media last week with Facebook and Twitter reportedly getting banned in the country.

The temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

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