Meta Platfrom Inc which owns Facebook and Instagram is now allowing its user to spew hate and call for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers and it will not block them for violation of its hate speech policy as the social media giant has eased its policy.
According to news agency Reuters that accessed internal emails, Meta Inc. has made temporary changes to its hate speech policy that allows its users to post content that calls for violence, including a call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
“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.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.
EXCLUSIVE Facebook and Instagram to temporarily allow calls for violence against Russians https://t.co/dhcObdoDk6 pic.twitter.com/QVokunNzyx
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 10, 2022
What is even more disturbing is that Meta will allow posts that call for the assassination of Vladimir Putin and Alexander Lukashenko who are the respective heads of state of their country. However, Meta has added a caveat that it is ok to call for violence against Russians as long as it did not contain other targets or discuss methods or locations.
Facebook owner Meta is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Putin or Belarusian President Lukashenko in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland, according to internal emails to its content moderators https://t.co/0joPML3sxw
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 10, 2022
The temporary policy changes on calls for violence are not only limited to Russian soldiers but it also applies in countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, reports Reuters.
“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-defence, etc.),” Meta highlighted a change in its hate speech policy in its email.
Mark Zuckerberg who is Jewish and owns Meta will also allow praise of the pro-Nazi Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited, in a change first reported by The Intercept.
Meta spokesman Joe Osborne said, “for the time being, making a narrow exception for the praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard,”.
Meta is now defending its decision to allow hate speech because they have observed that in this specific context, ‘Russian soldiers’ is being used as a proxy for the Russian military, however, to give itself a veneer of defense, it will prohibit attacks on Russians, it claimed.
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