Facebook is facing a much more black-and-white content battle against Russian misinformation than it has with the pandemic and 2020 US presidential election, expert says

Facebook and its parent company Meta have been criticized for how they police their platform.

Content moderation on internet platforms has become increasingly weaponized into political talking points, as right-wing pundits decry that companies like Facebook censor conservative voices on everything from the COVID-19 pandemic to the divisive 2020 US presidential election. Liberals say social media platforms aren't doing enough to stop the spread of misinformation and crack down on hate speech.

One of the more straightforward moderation decisions that Facebook has been faced with is one that seems to unite party lines, thanks to the universal condemnation levied against the unprovoked attack led by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

According to Ari Lightman, a professor of digital media at Carnegie Mellon and social media expert, there was more side-taking in regards to topics like the Pandemic, with many conservatives lambasting the disease and related safety measures as overhyped and serving a liberal agenda.

Lightman told Insider that the misinformation on the election was for their own specific ideology. This seems very different.

Lightman said that the war in Russia is black-and-white, which is why we won't see as many cries of censorship.

Russia has led a campaign to make Ukraine believe that it is in control of the war. Some Russian state-backed media outlets posted stories on Facebook and other sites that were false. A newscaster on Russian TV protested against the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy requested that Facebook restrict accounts in his country, and it was done by fact-checking the posts.

Russia accused Meta of censoring the news organizations, so it blocked access to Facebook andInstagram within its borders, and a Russian court declared Meta guilty of extremist activity.

Lightman said it was part of a full-blown censorship pursuit designed to keep control of the narrative around the war in Russia.

Lightman said that this is Russia's playbook. They will try to do it individually through Telegram or one of the point-to-point mechanisms if they can't do it with Facebook.