Facebook’s oversight board announced that it has selected the first six censorship appeals that it will consider.
“More than 20,000 cases were referred to the Oversight Board following the opening of user appeals in October 2020,” the board wrote in a Tuesday press release. “As the Board cannot hear every appeal, we are prioritizing cases that have the potential to affect lots of users around the world, are of critical importance to public discourse or raise important questions about Facebook’s policies.”
Facebook announced the 20-member board in May and began accepting appeals requests in October. The board is independent of Facebook, and any decision that the board makes regarding the enforcement or interpretation of Facebook’s content policies are binding. Facebook can submit cases to the board for review, but the social media platform cannot overturn a decision made by the independent body.
One of the six cases announced is a referral from Facebook. The case involves a post that was removed that claimed hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin were a cure for COVID-19 and criticized the French government’s response to the pandemic.
Facebook said the case was removed for violating its policy on hate speech that “created an environment of intimidation and exclusion, and in some cases, may promote real-world violence.”
All five other cases were submitted by users.
One case regarded a user who shared screenshots of tweets from former Malaysian Prime Minister Dr. Mahathir Mohamad following a terrorist attack in France, in which he said that “Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.” Facebook removed the post for violating its policy on hate speech, but the user claimed they were trying to raise awareness of the former prime minister’s “horrible words.”
Another case, from Myanmar, shared well-known photos of a dead Syrian child on a shore during the Syrian refugee crisis in a post that criticized the lack of an international response to China’s treatment of Uighur Muslims compared to another terrorist attack in France. Facebook said the case violated the hate speech policy. Another hate-speech case involved a post about Azerbaijan and the destruction of Armenian historical sites.
One case from Brazil involved a breast cancer awareness month post that showed pictures of breasts and nipples with explanations of breast cancer symptoms. Facebook said the post violated its policy on nudity and sexual activity. The user argued that the post was about spreading awareness for symptoms of breast cancer.
The final case, from a user in the United States, regarded a post that was reshared two years ago that quoted Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda minister during Adolf Hitler’s rule in Nazi Germany. Facebook removed the post for violating its policy on dangerous individuals and organizations, but the user argued he was trying to highlight perceived parallels between World War II-era fascism and the Trump administration.
There was no content related to the recent U.S. election in any of the cases. Political content censorship, particularly conservative content, has been a flashpoint on social media and in the halls of Congress — with a number of Republican senators and representatives alleging that social media giants such as Facebook and Twitter wield their censorship capacities to favor liberal sentiments and views.
In October, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the Senate Commerce Committee alongside Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai regarding Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gives liability protections to online social media platforms for content created by their users.
Sen. Ted Cruz specifically cited Twitter and Facebook’s recent handling of a New York Post story about content allegedly recovered from a laptop and hard drive belonging to Hunter Biden that raised concerns about foreign business dealings that present possible corruption and national security issues for him and his father, now President-elect Joe Biden.
“Each of the cases that the Board has chosen to hear raises important questions for public discourse or about Facebook’s policies, and have the potential to impact many users around the world,” a spokesperson for the oversight board told the Washington Examiner. “The Board is absolutely committed to making decisions in a politically neutral, non-partisan manner, and we will always strive to select the most challenging cases — no matter who or what they concern. We would encourage people to wait for the Board’s decisions on these cases to see our examination of the issues that they raise and their implications — including for social media users in the US.”
