This Is The Meta Reason To Temporarily Legalize Hate Speech On Facebook And Instagram To Russia

The Ukrainian people were given the freedom to voice their opinion against the Russian invasion, even if they violated the rules of hate speech. (photo: twitter @ZelenskyyUa)

JAKARTA – Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc, on Friday, March 11 stated that the temporary change in its content policy was for Ukraine only. This is necessary to allow users in the country to voice their opposition to the Russian attack.

The statement comes after the Russian government opened a criminal case after Meta said it would allow posting of hate speech such as "death to the Russian occupiers", on its Facebook and Instagram platforms.

Russian prosecutors asked the country's courts to accuse the US tech giant of an "extremist organization". The communications regulator in the country of the red bear said it would restrict access to Instagram from March 14. Facebook 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, as quoted by Reuters.

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

The Committee reports directly to the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. It is not clear what the consequences of the criminal case will be, given that Facebook and Instagram have been restricted by the Russian government since last week.

The president of Meta Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, responded to the Russian government's actions with a tweet saying that the company aims to protect the right to speak as an expression of self-defense reacting to the invasion of Ukraine. They also emphasized that the policy only applies 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 spokesperson for Meta said last Thursday that the company had temporarily changed its rules for political speech, allowing posts such as "death to the Russian occupier." But they do 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. This is of course an exception for Ukrainians.

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

In its internal email, Meta said temporary policy changes to calls for violence against Russian soldiers had been applied to markets in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.