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Facebook owner defends policy on calls for violence that angered Russia

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Facebook owner Meta Platforms said Friday that a temporary change in its content policy, only for Ukraine, was needed to let users voice opposition to Russia’s attack, as Russia opened a criminal case after the company said it would allow posts such as “death to the Russian invaders.”

Russian prosecutors asked a court to designate the U.S. tech giant as an “extremist organisation,” and the communications regulator said it would restrict access to Meta’s Instagram starting March 14.

“A criminal case has been initiated … in connection with illegal calls for murder and violence against citizens of the Russian Federation by employees of the American company Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said.

The committee reports directly to President Vladimir Putin. It was not immediately clear what the consequences of the criminal case might be.

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Meta Global Affairs President Nick Clegg responded after the Russian government action with a tweeted statement saying that the company aimed to protect rights to speech as an expression of self-defense reacting to the invasion of Ukraine and that the policy only applied to Ukraine.

“If we applied our standard content policies without any adjustments we would now be removing content from ordinary Ukrainians expressing their resistance and fury at the invading military forces, which would rightly be viewed as unacceptable,” Clegg wrote.

“We have no quarrel with the Russian people. There is no change at all in our policies on hate speech as far as the Russian people are concerned,” he added.

Two weeks into Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Meta spokesperson said on Thursday the company had temporarily altered its rules for political speech, allowing posts such as “death to the Russian invaders,” although it would not allow calls for violence against Russian civilians.

Meta said the temporary change aimed to allow for forms of political expression that would normally violate its rules.

Its oversight board said on Friday that it had been briefed by the company on Ukraine-related policies and that context was important for content policies and enforcement.

Internal Meta emails previously seen by Reuters said the temporary policy changes on calls for violence to Russian soldiers had applied to the markets of: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine.

A Meta spokesperson declined to provide comment other than Clegg’s statement.

The emails seen by Reuters also showed the U.S. company had temporarily allowed posts that call for the death of Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

“We hope it is not true because if it is true then it will mean that there will have to be the most decisive measures to end the activities of this company,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

INFORMATION WARS

Russia has for more than a year been striving to curb the influence of U.S. tech giants including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter, repeatedly fining them for allowing what it deems to be illegal content.

But the invasion of Ukraine – met by a storm of international condemnation and unprecedented sanctions – has sharply raised the stakes in the information war.

Social media provide an opportunity for dissent against Putin’s line – loyally followed by the tightly controlled state media – that Moscow was forced to launch its “special military operation” to defend Russian-speakers in Ukraine against genocide and to demilitarise and “denazify” the country.

The Investigative Committee said the Facebook move could violate articles of the Russian criminal law against public calls for extremist activities.

“Such actions of the (Meta) company’s management not only form an idea that terrorist activity is permissible, but are aimed at inciting hatred and enmity towards the citizens of the Russian Federation,” the state prosecutor’s office said.

It said it had applied to a court to recognise Meta as an extremist organisation and prohibit its activities in Russia.

Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services are all popular in Russia, with 7.5 million, 50.8 million and 67 million users last year respectively, according to researcher Insider Intelligence.

Last week, Russia said it was banning Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform.

Instagram is a favoured tool of jailed Putin opponent Alexei Navalny, who used it in a message posted via his lawyers and supporters on Friday to call for Russians to join protests against the Ukraine war and “mad maniac Putin” this weekend.

WhatsApp will not be affected by the legal moves, Russia’s RIA news agency cited a source as saying, as the messaging app is considered a means of communication not a way to post information.

(Editing by Susan Fenton, Mark Potter, Louise Heavens, Peter Henderson and Nick Zieminski)

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CTV National News: Social media giants sued – CTV News

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CTV National News: Social media giants sued  CTV News

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India’s media – captured and censored

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Across almost every form of media in India – social, broadcast and print – Narendra Modi and the BJP hold sway.

With India amid a national election campaign, its news media is in sharp focus. Until recently it was believed that the sheer diversity of outlets ensured a range of perspectives, but now, India’s mainstream media has largely been co-opted by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just how did the media in India get to this point and what does it mean for the upcoming elections?

Featuring:

Ravish Kumar – Former Host, NDTV
Shashi Shekhar Vempati – Former CEO, Prasar Bharati
Pramod Raman – Chief Editor, MediaOne
Amy Kazmin – Former South Asia Bureau Chief, Financial Times
Meena Kotwal – Founder, The Mooknayak

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Social media lawsuit launched by Ontario school boards

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Premier Doug Ford says that lawsuits launched by four Ontario school boards against multiple social media platforms are “nonsense” and risk becoming a distraction to the work that really matters.

The school boards, including three in the Greater Toronto Area, have launched lawsuits seeking $4.5 billion in damages against Snapchat, TikTok, and Meta, the owner of both Facebook and Instagram, for creating products that they allege negligently interfere with student learning and have caused “widespread disruption to the education system.”

But at an unrelated news conference in Ottawa on Friday, Ford said that he “disagrees” with the legal action and worries it could take the focus away from “the core values of education.”

“Let’s focus on math, reading and writing. That is what we need to do, put all the resources into the kids,” he said. “What are they spending lawyers fees to go after these massive companies that have endless cash to fight this? Let’s focus on the kids, not this other nonsense that they are looking to fight in court.”

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Four separate but similar statements of claim were filed in Ontario’s Superior Court of JusticSocial media lawsuit launched by Ontario school boards pervasive problems such as distraction, social withdrawal, cyberbullying, a rapid escalation of aggression, and mental health challenges,” Colleen Russell-Rawlins, the director of education with the Toronto District School Board, said in a news release issued Thursday.

“It is imperative that we take steps to ensure the well-being of our youth. We are calling for measures to be implemented to mitigate these harms and prioritize the mental health and academic success of our future generation.”

The school boards are represented by Toronto-based law firm Neinstein LLP and the news release states that school boards “will not be responsible for any costs related to the lawsuit unless a successful outcome is reached.”

These lawsuits come as hundreds of school districts in the United States file similar suits.

“A strong education system is the foundation of our society and our community. Social media products and the changes in behaviour, judgement and attention that they cause pose a threat to that system and to the student population our schools serve,” Duncan Embury, the head of litigation at Neinstein LLP, said in the new release.

“We are proud to support our schools and students in this litigation with the goal of holding social media giants accountable and creating meaningful change.”

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