Facebook Relaxes Violent Policy against Russian Soldiers, Putin

Facebook relaxed iis violent speech policy to allow users to call for death and aggression against Russians due to the country's invasion of Ukraine, reports revealed on Thursday.

Reuters reported that Meta will let some Facebook and Instagram posts in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland call for death to Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

“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,” Reuters quoted a Meta spokesperson as saying.

Nonetheless, the company will not allow “credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” as per the report.

Temporary policy changes regarding calls for violence against Russian soldiers will apply to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

In the same vein, YouTube and Google Play store announced that they are suspending all payment-based services, including subscriptions, in Russia.

“As a follow-up, we’re now extending this pause to all our monetization features, including YouTube Premium, Channel Memberships, Super Chat and Merchandise, for viewers in Russia,” YouTube said in a statement on Thursday.