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“Violent Sentiments” Against Putin to be Allowed on Facebook
The social media giant was careful to iterate, that calls to violence do not apply to Russian citizens.
Facebook and Instagram will allow – in some countries – calls for violence against Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers.
The news comes after Reuters claimed it had seen internal emails from Meta outlining the new content policy.
In response, [Russia] has implored the US to stop what it deems as “extremist activities” from the social media giant.
Under the amended policy, users in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland will also be able to call for the deaths of Russia’s President Putin and Belarusian President Lukashenko.
In a comment given to the BBC, a Meta spokesperson said: “In light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, we made a temporary exception for those affected by the war, to express violent sentiments toward invading armed forces.”
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In further clarification on what is and isn’t allowed, Meta has said that while general calls for violence will be allowed against the specified figures, they cannot contain other targets, as well as method or location – posts must also be in direct reference to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We demand that US authorities stop the extremist activities of Meta, take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice,” Russia’s embassy in the US tweeted.
The statement added: “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.”
☝️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
Up until last week, Facebook had been restricted, but still accessible in Russia. Since then, Moscow has cracked down on social media platforms, going on to block Facebook and Meta’s subsidiaries, citing 26 cases of “discrimination” against Russian media.
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