A court in Russia on Monday convicted the spokesperson of U.S. technology company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, of justifying terrorism and sentenced him to six years in prison in a swift trial in absentia, Russia’s independent news site Mediazona reported.
According to the outlet, the charges against Meta communications director Andy Stone stem from his remarks in 2022 following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24 that year. Stone, who is based in the United States, announced temporary changes to Meta’s hate speech policy to allow for “forms of political expression that would normally violate (its) rules, like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders.’”
In the same statement, Stone added that “credible calls for violence against Russian civilians” would remain banned. The Russian authorities opened a criminal case implicating Stone and other unidentified Meta employees nonetheless, describing the statement as “illegal calls to violence and killings of Russian citizens.”
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