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“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.’ We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement on Thursday.
Meta is also temporarily allowing some posts that call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland, according to a series of internal emails seen by Reuters news agency to its content moderators.
The calls for the leaders’ deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets or have two indicators of credibility, such as the location or method, one email said, in a recent change to the company’s rules on violence and incitement.
The emails said calls for violence against Russians are allowed when the post is clearly talking about the attack on Ukraine.
They said the calls for violence against Russian soldiers were allowed because this was being used as a proxy for the Russian military and said it would not apply to prisoners.
The temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine, according to one email.
Last week, Russia said it was banning Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform.
Moscow has cracked down on tech companies, including Twitter, which said it is restricted in the country, during its incursion of Ukraine, which it calls a “special operation.”.
Emails also showed that Meta would allow praise of the right-wing Azov battalion, which is normally prohibited, in a change first reported by The Intercept.
Meta spokesman Joe Osborne previously said the company was “for the time being, making a narrow exception for the praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard.”
