Meta has temporarily changed its hate speech policy in the face of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia.<\/p>\n
The adjusted policy will only be allowed in the context of the Ukraine invasion.<\/p>\n
Meta platforms including Facebook and Instagram will now let users in some selected countries call for violence against Russian and Russian soldiers.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The calls for the leaders’ deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n