Change Policy, Meta Defense Calls for Opposition to Russian Attacks

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Change Policy, Meta Defense Calls for Opposition to Russian Attacks


Facebook owner Meta Platforms said that a temporary change in its content policy, only for Ukraine, was needed to get users to voice their opposition to the Russian attack, as Russia opened a criminal case after the company said it would allow posts like "death to the Russian occupier."

Citing Reuters on Saturday (12/3), Russian prosecutors asked the court to designate the US tech giant as an extremist organization and the communications regulator would restrict access to Instagram Meta from March 14. The company said the decision would affect 80 million users in Russia.

"A criminal case has been initiated ... in connection with illegal calls for murder and violence against citizens of the Russian Federation by employees of the American company Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram," the Russian Investigative Committee said.

The Committee reports directly to President Vladimir Putin. It was not immediately clear what the consequences of the criminal case would be.

Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg responded after the Russian government's actions with a tweet statement saying that the company aims to protect the right to speak as an expression of self-defense reacting to the invasion of Ukraine and that the policy applies only to Ukraine.

"If we implemented our standard content policy without any adjustments, we would now remove content from ordinary Ukrainian citizens expressing their resistance and anger at invading military forces, which would be deemed unacceptable," Clegg wrote.

"We are not fighting with the Russian people. There is no change at all in our policy on hate speech as far as the Russian people are concerned," he added.


Two weeks after Russia's war in Ukraine, a Meta spokesperson said Thursday that the company is temporarily changing its rules for political speech, allowing posts such as "death to the Russian occupier," though it would not allow calls for violence against Russian civilians.

Meta said the temporary changes were aimed at allowing forms of political expression that would normally violate its rules.

Its supervisory board said on Friday it had been briefed by the company on policies related to Ukraine and that context is important for policy and content enforcement.

Meta's internal email previously seen by Reuters said temporary policy changes to calls for violence against Russian soldiers had been applied to markets: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.

A Meta spokesperson declined to comment other than Clegg's statement.

The emails seen by Reuters also showed the US company had temporarily allowed posts calling for the death of Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

"We hope that it is not true because if it is true then it means that there must be the most decisive action to end the activities of this company," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Information war

Russia has for more than a year been trying to curb the influence of US tech giants including Alphabet Inc's Google and Twitter, repeatedly fined them for allowing content it deems illegal.

But the invasion of Ukraine - met with an unprecedented storm of international condemnation and sanctions - has sharply raised the stakes in information warfare.

Social media provides an opportunity for dissent against Putin's line - staunchly followed by tightly controlled state media - that Moscow was forced to launch a "special military operation" to defend Russian-speaking Ukrainians from genocide and to demilitarize and "denazify" the country.

The Investigative Committee said Facebook's move could violate an article of Russia's penal code against public calls for extremist activity.

"Such actions by the management of the company (Meta) not only form the idea that terrorist activity is permissible, but also aim to incite hatred and hostility against citizens of the Russian Federation," the state prosecutor's office said.

It said it had applied to the court to recognize Meta as an extremist organization and ban its activities in Russia.

Other Meta services are also popular in Russia. Last year Facebook had an estimated 7.5 million users and WhatsApp 67 million, according to Insider Intelligence researchers.

Last week, Russia said it had banned Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions on access to Russian media on the platform.


Instagram is a favorite tool of Putin's jailed opponent, Alexei Navalny, who used it in messages posted through his lawyers and supporters on Friday calling for Russia to join protests against the Ukraine war and this weekend's "crazy Putin".

WhatsApp will not be affected by the legal move, Russian news agency RIA quoted a source as saying, as messaging the app is considered a means of communication not a way to send information.



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