Facebook ‘do not permit calls to assassinate a head of state’: Meta narrows hate speech following Russian backlash
Facebook owner Meta Platforms said it would be narrowing the scope of its content moderation policy for Ukraine after Russian backlash.
According to an internal company post seen by Reuters, Meta global affairs President Nick Clegg said: “We are now narrowing the focus to make it explicitly clear in the guidance that it is never to be interpreted as condoning violence against Russians in general”.
“We also do not permit calls to assassinate a head of state…So, in order to remove any ambiguity about our stance, we are further narrowing our guidance to make explicit that we are not allowing calls for the death of a head of state on our platforms,” Clegg added.
It comes after the social media giant said last week that it would temporarily allow some posts on Facebook and Instagram that called for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenk: broadening its usual hate speech remits.
Meta said that the temporary change in its hate speech policy applied only to Ukraine, and would allow social media users to air their opposition to Russia’s invasion.
On Friday, it said it was wrong to prevent Ukrainians from “expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces”.
The result was outrage in Russia, with the Kremlin opening a criminal case against the social media firm.
Prosecutors asked a court to designate Meta as an “extremist organisation”.
Meanwhile, fellow Silicon Valley giant Twitter has been moderating content on its site, and last week removed a tweet from the Russian embassy in London, which claimed an airstrike on a maternity hospital was “fake”.