Meta, the company that owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said on Sunday that it is changing its content moderation policy for Ukraine to ban death orders from a head of state, according to a post. inside the company seen by Reuters.
The move came after Reuters reported last week that Meta was temporarily allowing posts on Facebook and Instagram calling for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko.
After the report was published, Meta said on Friday that a temporary change to its content policy, applicable only to Ukraine, was needed to allow users to express opposition to Russia’s attack. On the same day, Russia opened a criminal case against the company.
“We are now narrowing the focus to make it explicitly clear in the guidance that one should never interpret as condoning violence against Russians in general,” Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a post on the company’s internal platform on Sunday. which was seen by Reuters.
“We also don’t allow requests to assassinate a head of state,” he added. “So to remove any ambiguity about our position, we are further restricting our guidance to make it explicit that we are not allowing calls for the death of a head of state on our platforms,” Clegg said.
Sought after outside business hours, Meta did not respond to a request for comment.
“These are difficult decisions. Circumstances in Ukraine are changing rapidly. We try to think through all the consequences and keep our guidance under constant review because the context is always evolving,” Clegg said.
There will be no policy changes on hate speech as far as the Russian people are concerned, he said.
“Meta is against Russophobia. We do not tolerate requests for genocide, ethnic cleansing or any kind of discrimination, harassment or violence against Russians on our platform,” he added.
Russia’s communications regulator has imposed restrictions on Meta’s Instagram, effective Monday. Meta previously restricted access to Russian state media RT and Sputnik on its platforms across the European Union.
