The word, which translates to “martyr”, accounts for more content removals on the company’s platforms than any other word.
MetaThe oversight board announced that it will review the moderation of the Arabic word “shaheed,” which means “martyr” in English, because it accounts for more content removals on the company’s platforms than any other word or phrase.
Thomas Hughes, director of administration for the Oversight Board, said on Thursday it was “a complex moderation issue” that “affects the way millions of people express themselves online.”
Hughes said the high number of content removals raises questions about “whether Muslim and Arabic-speaking communities are subject to excessive enforcement of their content due to Meta enforcement practices.”
“Shaheed” has several meanings in Arabic, including “witness” to an event, and is often used to refer to people who died in sacrifice for a sacred cause.
The meta-politics prohibits the praise, endorsement or depiction of entities or individuals designated as dangerous or placed on “terrorist” lists, including a number of Palestinian groups opposed to Israel’s long-standing occupation. decades.
Meta, whose services include Facebook and Instagram, has asked the supervisory board for guidance on whether to treat “shaheed” as praise and continue to remove posts that use the term to refer to people designated as dangerous or use a different approach, said the advice.
Moderating the word could impact reporting in Arabic-speaking countries, the board noted, and called for public comment to help in its deliberations.
The oversight board was created in late 2020 to review Facebook and Instagram’s decisions regarding the removal or retention of certain content and make decisions on whether to maintain or reverse the social media company’s actions .
The company has been criticized for failing to police abusive content in countries where such speech was likely to cause the most harm, but the council’s latest case suggests over-policing could also be a problem.
Palestinian digital rights
In September, a report produced by an independent consultancy firm commissioned by Meta found that over-enforcement resulted in grossly disproportionate consequences for the digital rights of Palestinians and Arabic-speaking users.
The report concluded that Meta’s practices violated Palestinians’ rights to freedom of expression and assembly, political participation, and non-discrimination.
Twitter, controlled by Elon Musk, has also come under fire for censorship of Palestinian public figures.
The Washington bureau chief of Jerusalem-based Al-Quds, one of the most widely read Palestinian daily newspapers, has had his account suspended.
Asked if he thought his suspension from Twitter was related to his outspokenness about Palestine, Said Arikat told Al Jazeera: “I believe so. I can’t think of any other reason.
Among the reasons given by the platform were the violation of community standards, and some accounts were allegedly suspended by mistake or as a result of technical problems. Some critics believe the unspoken reasons include a general increase in hate speech and incitement against Arabs, including Palestinians.
