Facebook allows its users in Ukraine and other Eastern European countries to wish death on the attacking Russian soldiers, the ruler Vladimir Putin or the Belarusian dictator Alexandr Lukashenko.

According to the usual rules of the network, such statements would be deleted.

With regard to the war of aggression that Putin is waging in Ukraine, Facebook makes an exception.

The Russian government then threatened Meta, which owns Facebook, with shutting down all of its services.

The public prosecutor's office has initiated proceedings against Meta, the group must be classified as an "extremist organization".

If a Reuters report proves correct, according to which users in some countries are allowed to call for violence against Russia and Russian soldiers on Facebook and Instagram, all activities by the company would be stopped, said the spokesman for the Russian Presidential Office, Dmitry Peskov.

Facebook is already blocked in Russia, Instagram and Whatsapp are not yet.

However, the Russian government is hiding the subtleties of the special rules on Facebook.

You refer to the war in Ukraine.

"Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are lenient with political expressions such as 'death to the Russian invaders,' which would normally violate our rules on violent speech," Meta spokesman Andy Stone told AFP.

"No credible calls for violence against Russian civilians" are allowed.

The Reuters agency quoted on Thursday from Meta's internal emails, which describe what is allowed: statements are permissible if they are directed against "Russian soldiers", unless they are prisoners of war;

this is also permissible when the "Russians" are mentioned in the context of the "Russian invasion of Ukraine".

However, the “Hate Speech Policy” still consists of preventing “attacks on Russians”.

The special rules apply to users in Ukraine and Russia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

The Russian embassy in the United States had asked the American government to stop the "extremist activities" of the Facebook parent company Meta.

"Meta's aggressive and criminal policies leading to incitement of hatred and hostility towards Russians" are "outrageous".

The company's actions are further evidence of the "information war" being waged against Russia without rules.