Faced with the invasion of Ukraine, the social network has decided to relax its regulations on hateful content. Messages hostile to the Russian army and leaders will not be deleted, under certain conditions.
“Because of the Russian invasion of Ukrainewe are lenient towards forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules on violent speech such as ‘death to Russian invaders’.” It was Andy Stone, head of communications at Meta, who announced it on Thursday, so messages hostile to the army and Russian leaders will no longer be deleted. However, he states: “We continue to not allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”
A Reuters article, published shortly before Meta’s statement, already mentioned internal discussions on the subject between content moderators. According to the emails that the press agency was able to consult, the social network also temporarily authorizes its users to post calls for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin or Alexander Lukashenko, the Belarusian leader. Posts that will be tolerated provided they do not quote others “targets” and don’t give “credibility indicators” such as location or method…
Also according to Reuters, the updated regulations apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Moscow’s reaction was immediate. The country immediately announced that it was taking legal action against Meta for “call for murder” of Russians. The Russian prosecutor’s office has asked to classify the Internet giant as an organization “extremist”, and therefore to ban all its activities in Russia. It also asks the Russian telecommunications gendarme Roskomnadzor to block access to Instagram in the country.
Last week, Russia had already blocked Facebook on its territory in retaliation for the Californian group’s decision to ban media close to power in Europe, such as the RT channel and the Sputnik site. The country led by Vladimir Putin thus joins the very closed club of those who ban the largest social network in the world, along with China and North Korea.
Most of America’s tech stalwarts have cut ties with Moscow since the invasion of Ukraine began. Microsoft and Apple have suspended their product sales in the country, while Netflix, Intel and Airbnb have suspended their activities there.
Update : addition this Friday at 2:10 p.m. of the complaint announced by Russia and the blocking of Instagram.