In exceptional times, exceptional moderation. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced Thursday that it is making exceptions to its policy on incitement to violence and hatred by not deleting posts hostile to the army and Russian leaders.
“Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are making leniency for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules on violent speech such as ‘Death to the Russian invaders’,” confirmed to AFP Andy Stone, head of communications at Meta. “We continue to not allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” he adds.
Meta’s statement comes after a Reuters report was published citing emails exchanged by content moderators at the social media giant and claiming that the rule update applied to Armenia. Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.
“Rules of War in Real Time”
For Emerson Brooking, resident scholar at the Atlantic Council, an American think tank, the exceptions authorized by Meta represent an attempt to adapt to an extremely fluid and tense situation. “Facebook is trying to write rules of war in real time”, summarizes this specialist in online disinformation to AFP. “War and violence are inextricably linked, it is impossible to separate them. »
The researcher recognizes that there is a risk of overflow that could harm the Russian population, beyond its military and political leaders alone. “We observe throughout history that the violent actions of one country against another lead to calls for violence, intolerance or hatred against foreigners associated with the aggressor country”, he explains. “One can think of the persecutions in the United States against the Germans during the First World War or against the Japanese during the Second World War. »
Facebook blocked in Russia
This is not the first time that Mark Zuckerberg’s group has tolerated this kind of publication, even if examples are rare: in June 2021, the network had thus authorized for 2 weeks messages from Iranian opponents calling for the death of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Twitter has not made any recent announcement regarding an update to its policies on violent content.
The platform did not delete a tweet from US Senator Lindsey Graham last week, where the elected Republican called for the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war. Twitter later confirmed to The Daily Beast that the post did not violate its policies.
Russia blocked Facebook on its territory last week, in retaliation for the Californian group’s decision to ban media close to the government (including the RT channel and the Sputnik site) in Europe. She joined the very closed club of countries banning the largest social network in the world, alongside China and North Korea.