Facebook and Instagram users cannot call for the death of Vladimir Putin, Meta, the parent company of the two social networks, clarified on Friday.
That focus was published after Russia’s Investigative Committee filed charges against the California giant, accusing it of “calling for the murder” of Russians.
Last Thursday, Facebook announced that it was making exceptions to its rules on violent and hateful content, by not deleting messages hostile to the army and Russian leaders.
“Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are leniency towards forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules on violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders,'” Andy Stone said. head of communications at Meta.
On Twitter, Meta’s president of international affairs, Nick Clegg, clarified on Friday that the change to the incitement to violence and hatred policy would only be applied in Ukraine, only “in the context of the invasion Russian”. A measure according to him necessary for the expression of Ukrainian resistance.
Responding to reports that the Russian government is considering designating Meta as an extremist organization for its policies in support of speech: pic.twitter.com/Y8sUbZDSML
—Nick Clegg (@nickclegg) March 11, 2022
According to email exchanges between content moderators obtained by the Reuters agency, the update of the regulations was previously intended to concern Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
“We will not tolerate Russophobia or any form of discrimination, harassment or violence against Russians on our platform,” added the man who was deputy prime minister of Great Britain from 2010 to 2015.
Non-consensual, Meta’s decision had raised “human rights and international humanitarian law concerns” for the UN Human Rights Office.
In an email sent internally on Sunday and consulted by the Bloomberg agency, Nick Clegg would have precisely written not to authorize “calls for the assassination of a head of state”, without however mentioning the name of Vladimir Putin.
Despite this clarification, Russia cut off access to Instagram on Monday. The social network Facebook has already been inaccessible on the territory for several days, after blocking media close to Russian power in Europe.
With Agence France-Presse