Meta made changes to its hate speech policy in some countries on March 10 to allow negative speech toward Russians in context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Company emails said the temporary changes will allow users to call for violence against Russians as well as against Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram, Reuters reported.
"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,'" a Meta spokesperson said in a statement. "We still won't allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians."
Meta said in an email that it considers a call for violence credible if it contains at least two indicators, including location or method, or if it pertains to targets other than Russian leaders or invaders, Reuters reported.
"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.)," Meta said in the email. "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," the email stated.
Meta has also adjusted its policy to allow promoting the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in the context of their defense of Ukraine against the Russian invasion, The Intercept reported. Support of the Azov Battalion was banned by Facebook in 2019, when it was designated as a hate group.
"We demand that (U.S.) authorities stop the extremist activities of @Meta, take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice," the Russian Embassy in the U.S. said in a tweet in response to the Reuters report. "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."
In response to the policy change, Russian prosecutors have requested to label Meta as an "extremist organisation," Reuters reported.
"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.
Russia has announced that it is blocking Facebook and Instagram, in part motivated by the Meta policy of allowing hate speech against Russians, The Associated Press reported.
"We hope it is not true because if it is true then it will mean that there will have to be the most decisive measures to end the activities of this company," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a press conference.