Meta-Russia standoff worsens, firm says won't tolerate 'Russophobia'

As Russia considers designating Meta as an extremist organisation for applying policies to speech in context of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the social network has said that its decision is temporary

As Russia considers designating Meta as an extremist organisation for applying its policies to speech in the context of Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the social network has said that its decision is temporary, taken in "extraordinary and unprecedented circumstances".

In a rare move, Meta has allowed posts with violent speech toward Russian soldiers on Facebook and Instagram in specific countries, including calls for harm or even death of Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

Nick Clegg, President, Global Affairs at Meta said late on Friday that their policies are focused on protecting people's rights to speech as an expression of self-defence in reaction to a military invasion of their country.

"The fact is, if we applied our standard content policies without any adjustments we would now be removing content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces, which would rightly be viewed as unacceptable," he argued.

Meta said that it is only going to apply this policy in Ukraine itself.

"We have no quarrel with the Russian people. There is no change at all in our policies on hate speech as far as the Russian people are concerned. We will not tolerate 'Russophobia' or any kind of discrimination, harassment or violence towards Russians on our platform," Clegg informed.

Earlier, the Russian government's communication agency announced it would block Instagram in Russia beginning on March 14, in response to Facebook's decision to temporarily allow users in some countries to call for violence against President Putin.

Instagram Head Adam Mosseri said that over 80 per cent of people in Russia on Instagram follow accounts from outside of Russia.

"The situation is terrifying. We're trying to do all we can to help keep people safe. We've made encrypted chats available to everyone in Ukraine and Russia. We've encouraged everyone in the region to make their accounts private," he said in a video message.

"We've also pledged $50 million to humanitarian efforts, and we've seen 750,000 people on the platform raise over $30 million for similar efforts," he informed.

On Monday, Instagram will be blocked in Russia.

"This decision will cut 80 million in Russia off from one another, and from the rest of the world," said Mosseri.

--IANS

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