Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has confirmed that it is changing its rules on violent speech in several countries because of the Ukraine invasion.
The company says that it has "temporarily" made allowances for violent speech - for example “death to the Russian invaders” - that would usually break its rules.
Meta said, though, it won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians. The internal emails discussing the policy were obtained by Reuters.
The Reuters report says that posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will be allowed in several countries.
The temporary policy change allowing for calls for violence against Russian soldiers applies to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, according to one email.
Moscow's internationally condemned attack on its neighbor has provoked unprecedented sanctions from Western governments and businesses, but also a surge of online anger and debates over social media's role in the war. The policy decision from Facebook and Instagram's parent Meta was met immediately with controversy, but the social media giant defended its change.
Meta, which counts billions of users globally across its apps, has previously struggled with what it would allow people to post in moments of upheaval.
In July 2021, the firm temporarily allowed posts calling for "death to Khamenei", referring to Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during protests that rocked the country.
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.
Since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine last month, Russian authorities have also stepped up pressure against independent media, though press freedoms in the country were already rapidly waning.
Moscow blocked Facebook and restricted Twitter the same day last week that it backed the imposition of jail terms on media publishing "false information" about the military.
