Meta’s oversight board seeks public comments on hate speech moderation

By Supantha Mukherjee

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Facebook (NASDAQ:) owner Meta’s Oversight Board on Thursday invited comments from the public on the posting of immigration-related content that may be harmful to immigrants, and shared two cases that Facebook moderators decided to keep on the platform.

The board plans to assess whether Meta’s decision to only protect refugees, migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers from the most severe attacks on its social media platforms under its hate speech policy is adequate.

The board is funded by the social media giant but operates independently. After gathering public comments it can issue non-binding policy recommendations to Meta.

The first case the board shared relates to a Facebook page of a Polish far-right coalition party that posted a meme in May using a term for Black people widely considered to be offensive and derogatory in Poland, the board said.

The post was viewed over 150,000 times, shared over 400 times, has more than 250 comments and was reported 15 times by users for hate speech but was left on Facebook following a human review by Meta, it said.

In the second case, a German Facebook page in June uploaded a picture of a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman holding up her hand in a stop gesture, with text saying that people should no longer come to Germany as they don’t need any more “gang rape specialists”.

Meta decided to leave up the image after human review. 

After the Oversight Board raised the issue, Meta’s policy subject matter experts reviewed both posts again but confirmed its original decisions were correct.

“These symbolic cases from Germany and Poland will help us determine whether Meta should be doing more and whether it is doing enough to prioritise this critical issue that matters to so many around the world,” board co-chair and former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt said.