The independent Oversight Board of Meta Platforms Inc. stated on Thursday that Facebook should not have removed a newspaper article about the Taliban that it deemed positive. The board defended users’ right to free speech and claimed that the tech company overly depended on automated moderation.
According to Meta, the Taliban’s announcement that women’s and girls’ schools and colleges in Afghanistan would reopen in March violated Facebook’s policy since it “praised” organizations who were thought to “engage in substantial offline harms.”
After removing the post, the corporation restricted the newspaper’s use of some Facebook functions.
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According to the Oversight Board, the post was sent to a special moderation queue when the newspaper appealed the decision, but it was never reviewed.
The Oversight Board said that Meta’s removal of the post was against Facebook’s regulations because they permit reporting on these organizations, and that Meta later changed its mind after the board chose the case.
The Oversight Board stated that “the Board decided that Meta should better protect users’ freedom of expression when it comes to reporting on terrorist regimes.”
Media Matching Service banks can “amplify the impact of wrong judgements by individual human reviewers” by utilizing automated algorithms to remove content, it was added.
The firm established Meta’s Oversight Board, which is made up of academics, legal professionals, and specialists in human rights, to make decisions on a small number of complex appeals involving content moderation but also to provide advice on site policy.
