After making a policy modification last week to allow for calls of violence and death versus Russian soldiers and leaders, META has actually reversed its policy to limit users from publishing death threats meant for top elected officials. Last week’s policy shift was first reported by Reuters, after acquiring internal e-mails detailing the updates.
“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.
Following the surprising move by META, Russian district attorneys asked for a court to designate the tech company as an” extremist organization.”
“A criminal case has been initiated … in connection with illegal calls for murder and violence against citizens of the Russian Federation by employees of the American company Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said in their own statement.
The Russian state prosecutor’s office added: “Such actions of the company’s management not only form an idea that terrorist activity is permissible, but are aimed at inciting hatred and enmity towards the citizens of the Russian Federation.”
The Russian communications regulator, Roskomnadzor, who reports directly to President Putin, stated it would restrict access to Meta’s Instagram beginning March 14. This decision affects 80 million users in Russia.
However, on Sunday, META said that it is limiting its content moderation policy for Ukraine to forbid users from calling for the death of a sitting head of state. Reuters reported the upgrade on Monday after reviewing an internal company post.
“We are now narrowing the focus to make it explicitly clear in the guidance that it is never to be interpreted as condoning violence against Russians in general,” Meta global affairs President Nick Clegg wrote on the company’s internal communications platform according to Timcast.
“We also do not permit calls to assassinate a head of state. … So, in order to remove any ambiguity about our stance, we are further narrowing our guidance to make explicit that we are not allowing calls for the death of a head of state on our platforms,” Clegg concluded.
H/T Timcast.
