War in Ukraine: Facebook accused of 'extremism' over Russia policy

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has asked a court to label US tech giant Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, as "extremist".

Meta says it will let its users in some countries call for violence against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his country's soldiers.

It will temporarily allow some violent posts, such as "death to the Russian invaders" that usually break its rules.

However, it says it won't permit calls for violence against Russian civilians.

In response, Russia called on the US to stop the social media giant's "extremist activities".

On Friday, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office called for a criminal investigation to be launched against Meta, citing Russian propaganda and extremism laws, according to a statement quoted by privately-owned news agency Interfax.

The agency added that the Prosecutor General's Office had asked state media watchdog Roskomnadzor to restrict access to Instagram over the "distribution of information materials containing calls to carry out violent actions against Russians, including servicemen".

On 4 March, Roskomnadzor said it was blocking access to Facebook in Russia over "discrimination" against Russian media.

Meta announced it had changed its policy after the Reuters news agency said it had seen internal emails outlining the policy shift.

"In light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, we made a temporary exception for those affected by the war, to express violent sentiments toward invading armed forces," a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.

Under the amended policy, users in countries including Russia, Ukraine and Poland will also be able to call for the deaths of Mr Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

The emails reportedly said calls for the leaders' deaths will be allowed unless they contain other targets, or included a location or methods.

Calls for violence against Russians are also allowed when the post clearly references the invasion of Ukraine, the emails reportedly said.

"We demand that US authorities stop the extremist activities of Meta, take measures to bring the perpetrators to justice," Russia's embassy in the US tweeted.

"Users of Facebook and Instagram did not give the owners of these platforms the right to determine the criteria of truth and pit nations against each other," it added.

Russia announced last week that it was blocking Facebook and its platforms, citing 26 cases of "discrimination" against Russian media by Facebook since October 2020.

While access to the site had already been restricted in Russia, it was not completely unavailable.

Moscow has cracked down on several social media platforms as it pursues what it calls a "special operation" in Ukraine.