Facebook allows violent speech against “Russian Invaders”

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Moscow court bans Facebook and Instagram calling them "extremist" organisations

Mar 11, 2022: According to an AFP report, Facebook has eased it policy on violent speech after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, allowing statements like “death to Russian invaders” but not credible threats against civilians.

“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders,’” Meta said in a statement.

“We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” it added.

The decision by the tech giant includes Facebook and Instagram and was met immediately with controversy, but the social media giant defended its change.

According to a report by Reuters, the policy applies to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.

In July 2021, the firm temporarily allowed posts calling for “Death to Khamenei”, citing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during protests that shook the country.

Earlier, U.S Senator Lindsey Graham called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin in a televised interview and on Twitter.

“The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out,” says Graham’s tweet from March 3, which Twitter has not taken down.

Some quarters expressed grave concern over the decision to allow some forms of hate speech on platforms. According to Lehigh University professor Jeremy Littau “‘We don’t allow hate speech except against certain people from a certain country’ is one hell of a can of worms.”

Facebook and other US tech giants have moved to penalize Russia for the attack on Ukraine and Moscow has also taken steps to block access to the leading social media network as well as Twitter.

Russia thus joined the very small club of countries barring the largest social network in the world, along with China and North Korea. The country blocked Facebook and restricted Twitter the same day last week that it backed the imposition of jail terms on media publishing “false information” about the military.

The war runs parallel to the unprecedented crackdown on the Russian opposition, in which protest leaders have been assassinated, imprisoned or forced out of the country.

Since the launch of the invasion, major US tech firms such as Apple and Microsoft have announced that they are suspending sales of their products in Russia, while other companies have announced a “pause” in some of their business activities or relationships.

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