Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has asked a court to label US tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as “extremist”.
Meta says it will allow its users in some countries to incite violence against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country’s soldiers.
It will temporarily allow some violent posts, such as B. “Death to the Russian invaders,” which usually break his rules.
However, calls for violence against Russian civilians are not allowed.
In response, Russia urged the US to stop the social media giant’s “extremist activities.”
On Friday, Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office called for a criminal investigation to be launched against Meta, citing Russian propaganda and extremism laws, according to a statement quoted by the private news agency Interfax.
The agency added that the Prosecutor General’s Office had asked state media watchdog Roskomnadzor to restrict access to Instagram for “distributing informational materials calling for violent actions against Russians, including soldiers.”
On March 4, Roskomnadzor said it was blocking access to Facebook in Russia for “discriminating” against Russian media.
Meta announced it had changed its policies after the Reuters news agency said it had seen internal emails outlining the policy change.
“Given the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, we have made a temporary exception for those affected by the war to express violent feelings towards invading forces,” a BBC meta spokesman said.
Under the changed policy, users in countries like Russia, Ukraine and Poland can also call for the deaths of Mr Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.
The emails reportedly said calls for the deaths of leaders were allowed unless they included other targets or a location or method.
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Calls for violence against Russians are also allowed if the post clearly refers to the invasion of Ukraine, the emails said.
“We demand that the US authorities stop Meta’s extremist activities and take action to bring the perpetrators to justice,” the Russian embassy in the US tweeted.
“Facebook and Instagram users have failed to give the owners of these platforms the right to set the truth criteria and pit nations against each other,” she added.
Russia last week announced it would block Facebook and its platforms, citing 26 cases of Facebook “discriminating” against Russian media since October 2020.
Although access to the site was already restricted in Russia, it was not completely inaccessible.
Moscow has cracked down on several social media platforms while conducting a so-called “special operation” in Ukraine.
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