Some of the quality controls that ensure that posts from users in Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries meet its rules have been suspended by Meta.
Six people with knowledge of the situation said that Meta temporarily stopped tracking whether its workers who monitor Facebook andInstagram posts from those areas were accurately enforcing its content guidelines. The workers couldn't keep up with the changing rules about what kinds of posts were allowed during the war in Ukraine.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Meta has made more than half a dozen content policy revisions. Some posts about the conflict that the company would normally have taken down have been allowed to remain.
The result has been internal confusion among the content moderators who patrol Facebook andInstagram for text and images with gore, hate speech and insinuations to violence. People who were not authorized to speak publicly said that Meta has changed its rules on a daily basis.
Meta has been roiled by the war in Ukranian and the confusion over the content guidelines is one of the ways. The company was under pressure from Russian and Ukrainian authorities over the information battle. Three people said that the company has dealt with discontent about its decisions, including from Russian employees concerned for their safety and Ukrainian workers who want the company to be tougher on Kremlin-affiliated organizations online.
Meta has weathered international trouble before, including the genocide of a Muslim minority in the country of Myanmar last decade and skirmishes between India and Pakistan. The largest conflict on the European continent since World War II has become a litmus test of whether the company has learned to police its platforms during major global crises.
David Kaye, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, said that the ingredients of the Russia-Ukraine conflict have been around for a long time.
The company was handling content decisions and employee concerns during the war, but a spokeswoman wouldn't say how.
Meta said it established a round-the-clock special operations team after Russia invaded Ukraine. It updated its products to aid civilians in the war, including features that direct Ukrainians toward reliable, verified information to locate housing and refugee assistance.
Two people with knowledge of the response to the war said that Meta's chief executive and COO were directly involved. The president for global affairs has taken on many of the responsibilities around the conflict as Mr. Zuckerberg focuses on transforming Meta into a company that will lead the digital worlds of the so-called metaverse.
The European Union would be restricted to the pages of Russia Today and Sputnik, which are Russian state-controlled media, following requests by the governments of Ukraine and other European countries. Russia retaliated by cutting off access to Facebook inside the country, claiming the company discriminated against Russian media.
President Zelensky praised Meta for moving quickly to limit Russian war propaganda on its platforms. Meta acted quickly to remove the edited video that featured Mr. Zelensky yielding to Russian forces.
The company has made mistakes. The Ukrainian Legion was allowed to run ads on its platforms this month to recruit foreigners for the Ukrainian army, a violation of international laws. The group may have misrepresented their ties to the Ukrainian government when they showed the ads to people in the United States, Ireland, Germany and elsewhere.
Meta had begun changing its content policies to deal with the fast- moving nature of posts about the war. Posts that might encourage violence have been forbidden by the company. On Feb. 26, two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Meta informed its content moderators that it would allow calls for the death of Mr. Putin and for violence against Russians and Russian soldiers.
The headline suggested that posts calling for violence against all Russians would be ignored. Russian authorities labeled Meta's activities as extremists.
Meta reversed course and said it wouldn't allow its users to call for the deaths of heads of state.
The Times reviewed an internal memo written by Mr. Clegg that was first reported by Bloomberg.
Meta changed other policies. It made a temporary exception to its hate speech guidelines so users could post about the removal of Russians in 12 Eastern European countries. The rule was changed within a week to only apply to users in Ukraine.
The six people with knowledge of the situation said that the constant adjustments left the moderators confused.
There are ongoing peace talks. Russia promised to reduce military activity near Kyiv and Ukraine said it was ready to become neutral. Even so, weeks of further negotiation may be needed to reach an agreement, and Russia appears determined to capture more territory in eastern Ukraine.
On the ground. Russia gave up some territory in the north of the country, which was a result of a successful Ukrainian resistance.
There are new sanctions. The United States is preparing new sanctions against the supply chains of Russia in order to erode Moscow's ability to attack Ukraine. The new measures will be rolled out with the help of Western allies.
They said the policy changes were difficult because they were given less than 90 seconds to decide if images of dead bodies, videos of limbs being blown off, or calls to violence violated Meta's rules. They said that some posts about the war in Chechen were shown to the moderators even though they didn't know the languages.
Ms. Lever wouldn't say if Meta had hired content moderators who specialize in those languages.
Meta faced a dilemma with war content, according to a senior fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab of the Atlantic Council.
Content moderation policy is meant to limit violent content. There is no way to pretend that war is different.
Meta has faced complaints from employees. Two people who attended a meeting for workers with ties to Ukraine said that employees asked why the company waited until the war was over to take action against Russia Today and Sputnik. They said that Russian state activity was at the center of Facebook's failure to protect the U.S. presidential election.
Meta has no employees in Russia, but the company held a meeting for workers with Russian connections. According to an internal document, those employees were concerned that Moscow's actions would affect them.
Some Russian employees said they had erased their place of work from their online profiles in discussions on Meta's internal forums. What kind of risks will be associated with working at Meta not just for us but our families?
Ms. Lever said that Meta's hearts go out to all of its employees who are affected by the war in Ukraine, and that their teams are working to make sure they and their families have the support they need.
According to an internal poll, some employees voiced their unhappiness with the changes to the speech policies during the war. The new rules were being used as proof that Westerners hate Russians.
Will the Russian ban affect our revenue? Read one question about the future quarters.
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