Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., clarified on Sunday that sharing a post “calling for a head of state to die” was a violation of the company’s user rules.
Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., clarified on Sunday that sharing a post “calling for a head of state to die” was a violation of the company’s user rules.
Last week, Facebook temporarily relaxed its policies so that Ukrainian users could post threats of violence against the Russian military, which invaded the neighboring country in late February. The change has led to some public confusion about what is allowed and what is not, on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, posted a statement on Friday saying the move was intended to protect the rights of Ukrainians and did not signal tolerance for “discrimination against treatment, harassment or violence against Russians”. On Sunday, he attempted to further explain the company’s stance to employees in an internal post.
“We are now narrowing our focus to make it clear in the guidance that it should never be construed to condone violence against Russians in general,” Clegg wrote in an internal post reviewed by Bloomberg. He added that the revised policy applies only in Ukraine, and “only in the context of the speech regarding Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.”
“We also don’t allow calls to assassinate a head of state,” Clegg said, though he did not mention Putin by name.
Russia has blocked both Facebook and Instagram for the past two weeks, citing Meta’s content policy decisions. Meta previously blocked Russian state-backed media accounts in Ukraine and the European Union, and blocked all advertising from Russian businesses.
