On March 10, a Reuters headline announced that Facebook would temporarily change its content rules to allow users to post calls for the death of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, as well as “calls for violence against Russians.” (Reuters later modified its headline to specify “invading Russians.”) Such posts would normally qualify as what Meta calls “T1 violent speech,” which is removed without question. A few days later, Nick Clegg, head of global affairs for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, said the new rules would not allow users to call for the death of Putin or Alexander Lukashenko, the president of Belarus. Clegg also said that calling for violence against Russians would only be allowed for users in Ukraine, and only when “the context is the Russian invasion.”
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