It’s been totally kosher to express hope for the death of major public figures on Meta’s social media platforms for a while now. Hypothetically speaking, one could get away with posting to Facebook and Instagram, “Why does God allow a world in which we can’t have Betty White but Henry Kissinger still hasn’t keeled over yet?” or, “Donald Trump needs to hurry up and choke on a McDouble.” Over the weekend, however, it appears that the company is changing its morbid tune a bit thanks to the ongoing geopolitical and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
According to Reuters’ review of internal company communications over the weekend, Meta is altering its policies in the region. "We are now narrowing the focus to make it explicitly clear in the guidance that it is never to be interpreted as condoning violence against Russians in general," Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote, adding that the company would not allow calls to assassinate heads of state, such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, or more generalized calls for their deaths. Both men seem to be hearing a lot of those sentiments these days, for some reason.
