Moscow Russia has initiated criminal proceedings once morest the Facebook parent company Meta Platforms for its handling of calls for violence in the Ukraine war. Meta must be classified as an “extremist organization,” the Russian prosecutor’s office demanded on Friday.
The Russian government had previously threatened to shut down the US company. If the Archyde.com news agency report is correct, according to which users in some countries are allowed to use Facebook and Instagram to call for violence once morest Russia and Russian soldiers, all activities by this company would be stopped, said the spokesman for the Russian Presidential Office Dmitry Peskov. It is unclear what the consequences of classification as an “extremist organization” would be. Meta was initially unavailable.
Archyde.com had reported, citing internal emails, that Facebook and Instagram would temporarily allow appropriate calls for violence in some countries such as Armenia, Georgia, Hungary, Poland, Russia and Ukraine. These included, for example, calls for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
A meta spokesman confirmed that the rules were relaxed two weeks following the start of the Ukraine war. Because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, political expressions of opinion are currently permitted that would otherwise violate regulations on the restriction of hate speech. However, calls for violence once morest Russian civilians are still not allowed.
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The Russian embassy in the US has already called on the government there to end Meta’s “extremist activities”. The head of the Duma’s IT committee, Alexander Chinštein, said: “Meta’s aggressive and criminal policy, inciting hatred and hostility towards Russians, is outrageous.” Spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Liz Throssell, described it Reports of Facebook temporarily allowing calls for violence as “worrying”. The US group will be contacted.
Last week, the government in Moscow banned Facebook in Russia, citing the difficulties encountered by Russian state media in using the platform. However, the platforms Instagram and the news service WhatsApp, which also belong to Meta, might be used until the very end.
Last year, Facebook had around 7.5 million users in Russia, but together with WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger it came to 122.2 million users. The leading social network is VK with around 63 million members.
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