Both platforms have changed their hate speech policies
(Picture: REUTERS)Facebook and Instagram will allow posts calling for violence against Russian soldiers and Vladimir Putin in a number of countries, following a change to their hate-speech policies.
Due to the invasion of Ukraine, internal emails from Meta, who owns both platforms, show that terms such as “death to the Russian invaders” will now be allowed.
The social media company has also instructed its content moderators to allow posts which call for the death of the Russian President Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Reuters reports.
The temporary policy only applies to users in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
The calls for the deaths of the two leaders will only be blocked if they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as their location or method, one email said.
An internal email said: “We are issuing a spirit-of-the-policy allowance to allow T1 violent speech that would otherwise be removed under the Hate Speech policy when: (a) targeting Russian soldiers, except prisoners of war, or (b) targeting Russians where it’s clear that the context is the Russian invasion of Ukraine (e.g., content mentions the invasion, self-defense, etc.).
“We are doing this because we have observed that in this specific context, ‘Russian soldiers’ is being used as a proxy for the Russian military. The Hate Speech policy continues to prohibit attacks on Russians.”
A statement from a Meta spokesperson added: “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.”
Following the story, the Russian Embassy in the US called for the social media platform to “stop the extremist” activities of Meta, in a statement on Twitter.
☝️We demand that 🇺🇸 authorities stop the extremist activities of @Meta, take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice. 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. https://t.co/1RkrjRmEtA pic.twitter.com/sTacSm4nDt
— Russian Embassy in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) March 11, 2022
It read: “We demand that US authorities stop the extremist activities of Meta and take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice.
“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.”
Last week, Russia blocked access to Facebook and Twitter following restrictions of its state-owned media channels.
Russia Today was removed from Facebook and Instagram, while Russian communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, later announcing a partial block of Facebook services in retaliation.
Both Twitter and Facebook also removed posts from Russia’s UK embassy, which claimed the bombing of a children’s hospital in Mariupol was fake.
At least three people were killed following the missile strike although Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov said the hospital was not operational and being used by Ukrainian armed forces.
