How War in Ukraine Roiled Facebook and Instagram

This month, Reuters reported on Meta’s shifts with a headline that suggested that posts calling for violence against all Russians would be tolerated. In response, Russian authorities labeled Meta’s activities as “extremist.”

Shortly thereafter, Meta reversed course and said it would not let its users call for the deaths of heads of state.

“Circumstances in Ukraine are fast moving,” Mr. Clegg wrote in an internal memo that was reviewed by The Times and first reported by Bloomberg. “We try to think through all the consequences, and we keep our guidance under constant review because the context is always evolving.”

Meta amended other policies. This month, it made a temporary exception to its hate speech guidelines so users could post about the “removal of Russians” and “explicit exclusion against Russians” in 12 Eastern European countries, according to internal documents. But within a week, Meta tweaked the rule to note that it should be applied only to users in Ukraine.

The constant adjustments left moderators who oversee users in Central and Eastern European countries confused, the six people with knowledge of the situation said.

The policy changes were onerous because moderators were generally given less than 90 seconds to decide on whether images of dead bodies, videos of limbs being blown off, or outright calls to violence violated Meta’s rules, they said. In some instances, they added, moderators were shown posts about the war in Chechen, Kazakh or Kyrgyz, despite not knowing those languages.

Ms. Lever declined to comment on whether Meta had hired content moderators who specialize in those languages.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/technology/ukraine-russia-facebook-instagram.html