The Russian embassy in the United States today demanded that Washington stop the “extremist activities” of Meta, the company that owns the social networking site Facebook, after its decision to amend its rules of use for incitement to violence and hate speech. and to allow posts calling for “Russian invaders to die” and inciting acts of violence against the Russian armed forces and the Russian political leadership.
Meta Platforms has decided to allow Facebook and Instagram users in several countries to post posts calling for violence against Russians, particularly the Russian military – according to internal messages leaked to Reuters on Thursday, temporarily removing the prohibition of hate speech provided for in the rules of their use.
“Meta’s aggressive and criminal policy, which leads to incitement to hatred and hostility against the Russians, is outrageous,” the Russian embassy said in a statement. us”. He called on the US authorities to “stop Meta’s extremist activities and bring those responsible to justice”.
The change of the rules of use of the websites was confirmed to the French Agency by Andy Stone, a representative of Meta. “Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we show leniency in forms of political expression that normally violate our regulations on incitement to violence, such as ‘death to the Russian invaders,'” he said, adding that “we continue to disapprove in violence against Russian citizens. “
This policy change concerns Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
Russia banned Facebook in its territory two weeks ago.
For Emerson Brookings, a researcher at the American Center for Atlantic Studies, the exceptions approved by Meta are part of its effort to adapt to an extremely fluid and tense situation, to “write the rules of war in real time.” “War and violence are inextricably linked, they are inseparable,” he said, adding that there was a danger that the situation could escalate and harm Russians in general, beyond the military and politicians.
“We have historically observed that violent actions by one country against another lead to calls for violence, intolerance, hatred against foreigners from the attacking country. “One can recall the persecutions in the United States of the Germans in World War I or the Japanese in World War II.”
This is not the first time that Mark Zuckerberg’s Californian group has tolerated such publications, although examples are rare. In June 2021, his platforms allowed, for 2 weeks, messages from Iranian opposition calling for the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
For its part, Twitter has not announced any change to its rules. However, the platform did not delete last week a post by Republican senator Lindsay Graham, who called for the “assassination” of Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war. Twitter assured The Daily Beast that the post did not violate its terms of use.
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