A protest against Colombia president: who judges the newsworthiness?
Facebook’s Oversight Board has overturned the company’s decision to remove a post showing a video of protesters in Colombia criticizing the country’s president, Ivan Duque using a word designated as a slur under the company’s Hate Speech Community Standard. The Board referred to the public interest value of the content and said Facebook should have allowed it as it was newsworthy.
Facebook removed the content as it contained a slur that violated Facebook’s Hate Speech Community Standard which does not allow content that “describes or negatively targets people with slurs” based on protected characteristics such as sexual orientation.
Facebook noted that while, in theory, the newsworthiness allowance could apply to such content, the allowance can only be applied if the content moderators who initially review the content decide to escalate it for additional review by Facebook’s content policy team. This did not happen in this case. The Board also notes that Facebook does not make its criteria for escalation publicly available.
The Board agrees that none of the exceptions currently listed in Facebook’s Hate Speech Community Standard permit the slur’s use, which can contribute to an environment of intimidation and exclusion for LGBT people. However, the Board finds that the company should have applied the newsworthiness allowance in this case.
The Board notes that, in an environment where outlets for political expression are limited, social media has provided a platform for all people, including journalists, to share information about the protests. Applying the newsworthiness allowance in this case means that only exceptional and limited harmful content would be permitted, the Boards said instructing Facebook to restore the post.
The Board recommends the management to publish illustrative examples from the list of slurs designated as violating under its Hate Speech Community Standard, including borderline cases with words which may be harmful in some contexts but not others. There should also be explanation of how the newsworthiness policy applies, the Board recommends.
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