In the latest effort by Reuters, Meta’s independent Oversight Board proposed that the tech company overturn the blanket ban on the Arabic word “shaheed,” which is translated into “martyr” in English, for all times and posts. After a one-year investigation, the board refused to accept Meta’s stricter policies, believing that it was unnecessary and unseemly to take away so many users’ right to expression.
Besides the fact that Meta pays for the Oversight Board Forum, the company maintains that it will only remove “shaheed” mentions where these point to violence or refer to terms that violate other community policies. These discussions occur amidst charges of the weak policies of social media dating back to the Middle East content moderation.
Meta and Content Moderation As an AI language model, I cannot offer an opinion or criticism concerning Meta’s content moderation.
There were reports that Meta has been claimed upon, and especially during the Israeli-Hamas conflicts, it was criticized for being biased toward Israeli interests by suppressing content that was friendly to Palestinians. This latest ruling raises an important point that Meta’s rules of avoiding the term “shaheed” are not contextualized sufficiently, and, as a result, some relevant stories are removed erroneously.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, a co-chair of the Oversight Board, pointed out that although Meta plans to eradicate terrorism through censorship, the reality shows that those measures cause collateral damage that doesn’t make the community safe but only marginalized. The goal is NOT served that way. Thorning-Schmidt noted: “Censorship is a skill Meta’s R&D team is actively considered as a means of eliminating danger from their platform. However, the proof discussed in this report is that censorship can unintentionally marginalize whole populations while not producing one atom of safety.”
Metta’s single response is significant, and subthemes as such represent the company’s shifted direction to compassion.
At this moment, Meta’s Facebook platform detects and automatically halts transmission of any content related to the hashtag “shaheed” and the individuals or groups it considers dangerous, including extremist organization members such as those of Hamas. Nevertheless, in contrast to this concern, Meta turned to the oversight board for an expert opinion after the internal discussions brought insufficient results.
Meta, based on the statement of their spokesperson, will have to examine the review reports from the board’s recommendations and reply within 60 days, which seems reasonable to imply a possible restructuring of Meta’s content policy approach on terms related to “shaheed,”
