Meta’s Oversight Board Invites Comments on Martyrs

Technology Policy Brief #83 | By: Mindy Spatt | April 20, 2023

Header photo taken from: reuters.com

Policy Summary

[SSB theme=”Official” align=”center” counter=”true” ]

Meta’s Oversight Board has taken public comments on the way its platforms treat the Arabic word “Shaheed”, often deleting it from posts by posters Meta has deemed dangerous. Currently the most removed word on all of Meta’s platforms, critics claim the company’s standards for dangerous content are biased and unfair. The Oversight Board will issue and advisory opinion on the issue, which is attracting international attention.

Photo taken from: thehill.com

Policy Analysis

Meta requested the Board review itself. It treats the word as “an “honorific” with “multiple meanings” that is often “used to describe someone dying unexpectedly or prematurely, at times referring to an honorable death….” The word does not have an equivalent in English, so Meta translates it to mean martyr in all contexts.

The board that will decide the issue is an international panel of former political leaders, journalists and human rights activists based in London. You may remember that it played a role in Trump getting kicked off of Facebook in 2018, affirming leadership’s decision to remove him for violating company policies against inciting violence.

That decision generated outsize interest for an Oversight Board decision, receiving 9,666 public comments mostly from the United States and Canada. By comparison, the Board’s investigation into Meta’s decision to remove a video from Instagram showing the aftermath of a terrorist attack in Nigeria received just 9 comments. The original comment period for Shaheed was extended and ended on April 17.

This decision is framed by Meta’s equally controversial policies governing who Meta considers to fit into its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations categories. Takedowns of the word Shaheed are largely applied to individuals appearing on that Dangerous Individuals and Organizations list, many of whom are Arabic, and hence in the top tier of that multi-tiered list.

The list itself was secret until The Intercept published it in October 2021, and confirmed long held suspicions of anti- Muslim and anti-Arabic bias. Included in the top tier of the most terrifying terrorists are not only known the likes of Al Queda but also an innocuous sounding British aid organization, the Palestinian Relief and Development Fund. Intercept’s report contained comments from legal experts including Faiza Patel of the Brennan Center for Justice, who said “The lists seem to create two disparate systems, with the harshest penalties applied to heavily Muslim regions and communities.” In contrast, Patel pointed out, “Hate groups designated as Anti-Muslim hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center are overwhelmingly absent from Facebook’s lists.”

Photo taken from: aljazeera.com

According to Meta, it interprets “Shaheed” as martyr, and hence praiseful. Praise of Dangerous Individuals is prohibited by Meta’s policies. These policies have been harshly criticized by Palestinian journalists, whose posts are often deleted.

The Palestinian social media monitoring Centre Sada Social reported that 600 Palestinian accounts or pro-Palestinian Facebook posts were restricted or deleted in 2021, a record. It noted the targeting of the word Shaheed which Palestinians frequently use to describe people killed by Israeli forces, regardless of whether they participated in attacks or were innocent civilian victims. The punishment doesn’t end there; Meta keeps tracks of how many removals users amass, and if they accumulate too many their accounts may be disabled altogether.

Meta acknowledges that changes are needed, and has requested the Board’s approval for allowing expanded use of Shaheed. It proposes to remove content that uses “Shaheed” to refer to an individual designated as dangerous under Meta’s Dangerous Individuals and Organizations policy “only where there is additional praise, representation or support, or where there is a signal of violence.” The board, appointed by Meta, may be amenable to that change but will surely have other perspectives to consider.

Follow us for the latest U.S. RESIST News!