March 11, 2022
Meta has temporarily changed its hate speech policy in the face of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.
The adjusted policy will only be allowed in the context of the Ukraine invasion.
Meta platforms including Facebook and Instagram will now let users in some selected countries call for violence against Russian and Russian soldiers.
The new policy according to internal emails will allow for some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The calls for the leaders’ deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility.
“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.). 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.
According to an email, countries that will be allowed to use the new policy include Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.
For more information, read the original story in Reuters.
