Munsif Vengattil & Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters] – Meta Platforms (NASDAQ) will permit Facebook users (NASDAQ) in certain countries to demand violence against Russians, and Russian soldiers, within the context for the Ukraine invasion. According to internal emails seen Thursday by Reuters, this is a temporary modification to its hate speech strategy.

According to emails sent to content moderators, the social media site is temporarily permitting posts calling for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

We have made temporary allowances as a result the Russian invasion in Ukraine. These forms of political expression would otherwise violate our rules, such as violent speech like “death to Russian invaders.” “We still refuse to allow credible calls of violence against Russian civilians,” said a Meta spokesperson in a statement.

Only calls to leaders’ death will be permitted if they include other targets or two indicators of credibility such as location and method.

Citing the Reuters story, Russia’s embassy in the United States demanded https://twitter.com/search?q=Russian%20Embassy%20in%20the%20US%3A%20Noted%20the%20&src=typed_query that Washington stop the “extremist activities” of Meta.

“Users of Facebook & Instagram did not give the owners of these platforms the right to determine the criteria of truth and pit nations against each other,” the embassy said on Twitter (NYSE:) in a message that was also shared by their India office.

One email states that the policy shifts on temporary violence against Russian soldiers are applicable to Armenia (Azerbaijan), Estonia, Georgia and Latvia.

Meta pointed out a recent change to its hate speech policy in an email sent to moderators. This applies both to Russian soldiers as well to Russians within the context of invasion.

“We have issued a spirit-of the-policy exception to permit T1 violent expressions that could otherwise be removed from the Hate Speech policy: (a. Targeting Russian soldiers, EXCEPT prisoner of war; or (b. Targeting Russians when it’s obvious that the context of this attack is on Ukraine, e.g. the content refers to the invasion, self defense, etc.”It said so in the email.

“We do this because in this context, we’ve observed that Russian soldiers are being used as proxy to the Russian military. “The Hate Speech policy will continue to ban attacks on Russians,” stated the email.

Russia declared last week it will ban Facebook in Russia in protest at restrictions placed on Russian media’s access. Moscow clamped down on technology companies including Twitter during the invasion of Ukraine. This was called a “special opera.”

Numerous social media platforms, which include Sputnik and Russian state media RT, have implemented new restrictions on content around conflict. They also demonstrated some carve-outs during wartime.

Also, emails showed that Meta was open to praising the Azov battalion of right-wingers, something which is usually prohibited. This change was first reported by The Intercept.

Meta spokeswoman previously stated that they were “for now, making a small exception for praise of Azov Regiment strictly within the context of defending Ukraine or in their role in the Ukraine National Guard.”