Facing heat from Russia for allowing users to post ‘threats of violence against Moscow’, Meta on Monday tightened its content moderation policy to restrict calls for the death of a head of state, according to Reuters.
“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,” Meta global affairs President Nick Clegg wrote in a post on the company’s internal platform on Sunday that was seen by Reuters.
“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 said.
The latest move comes a week after Facebook temporarily relaxed its policies, allowing Ukrainian users to post death threats on Facebook and Instagram against Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
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Facebook had clarified that it was temporarily making changes to its content policy only for Ukrainian users only to condemn violent Russian attacks.
The move triggered an outrage in Russia which pressed criminal charges against the social media firm for allowing hate speech.
Clegg clarified that there would be no change to policies on hate speech as far as the Russian people are concerned.
Also read | For ‘censoring’ domestic media, Russian government partially limits access to Facebook
“Meta stands against Russophobia. We have no tolerance for calls for genocide, ethnic cleansing, or any kind of discrimination, harassment, or violence towards Russians on our platform,” he said.
Meanwhile, Instagram was no longer accessible in Russia, reported AFP.
Instagram’s app was not refreshing without a VPN connection on Monday, AFP journalists said.
The social network also appeared on a list of online resources with “restricted access” published by Russia’s media regulator Roskomnadzor.
Watch | Russia opens criminal case against Meta after Facebook eases rules on violent speech
(With inputs from agencies)
