Facebook says it won’t block anti-Russian hate speech

Facebook says it has temporarily eased its rules regarding violent speech due to the invasion of Ukraine, to allow statements like “death to Russian invaders,” but not credible threats against civilians.

Moscow’s internationally condemned invasion of its neighbor has provoked unprecedented sanctions from Western governments and businesses, but also a surge of online anger.

“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,'” Facebook’s parent company Meta says in a statement.

“We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians,” it adds.

Facebook’s statement comes after a Reuters report, citing the firm’s emails to its content moderators, which said the policy applies to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine.