Facebook allows death calls for Putin and Russian soldiers

Meta will allow Facebook and Instagram users in certain countries to call for violence against the Russian military and for the death of Vladimir Putin. The group makes this decision as the war continues in Ukraine following the invasion by Russia.

Calls to violence are validated by Facebook

“Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily allowed forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules, such as violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders'”, said Andy Stone, head of communications at Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. “We still do not allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians”he added.

Meta’s statement comes after the publication of a Reuters articleciting emails exchanged by Facebook content moderators and saying the policy update applies to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania , Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.

For its part, Russia recently blocked Facebook on its territory, in retaliation for the social network’s decision to ban media close to the government (including the RT channel and the Sputnik site) in Europe. Access to Twitter is heavily restricted in Russia.