How Facebook restricted news in Palestinian territories
Buongiorno, siccome l'ha detto la BBC _sicuramente_ ora lo sanno tutti quindi la mia segnalazione dovrebbe essere inutile, comunque: «How Facebook restricted news in Palestinian territories» https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c786wlxz4jgo by Ahmed Nour, Joe Tidy and Yara Farag, Dec. 18 2024 --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- In a comprehensive analysis of Facebook data, we found that newsrooms in the Palestinian territories - in Gaza and the West Bank - had suffered a steep drop in audience engagement since October 2023. The BBC has also seen leaked documents showing that Instagram - another Meta-owned platform - increased its moderation of Palestinian user comments after October 2023. [...] Since the beginning of the Israel-Gaza war, just a few outside reporters have been allowed to enter the Palestinian coastal territory of Gaza from the outside, and they were only able to do so escorted by the Israeli army. Social media has filled the gap for those wanting to hear more voices from inside Gaza. Facebook pages for news outlets such as Palestine TV, Wafa news agency and Palestinian Wattan News - which operate out of the West Bank territory - became a vital source of updates for many around the world. [...] During a period of war, audience engagement might be expected to rise. However, the data showed a 77% decline after the Hamas attacks on 7 October 2023. Palestine TV has 5.8 million followers on Facebook. Journalists at the newsroom shared statistics with us showing a 60% drop in the number of people seeing their posts. [...] Over the past year, Palestinian journalists have raised fears that their online content is being "shadow-banned" by Meta - in other words, restricted in how many people see it. To test this, we carried out the same data analysis on the Facebook pages of 20 Israeli news organisations such as Yediot Ahronot, Israel Hayom and Channel 13. These pages also posted a large amount of war-related content, but their audience engagement increased by nearly 37%. Meta has previously been accused by Palestinians and human rights groups of [failing to moderate online activity fairly]. An independent report in 2021 commissioned by the company said this was not deliberate but because of a lack of Arabic-speaking expertise among moderators. Words and phrases were being interpreted as offensive or violent, when they were in fact innocuous. For example, the Arabic phrase "Alhamdulillah", which means "Praise be to God", was sometimes being auto-translated as "Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom". To see if this explained the decline in engagement with Palestinian outlets, the BBC carried out the same analysis on Facebook pages for 30 prominent Arabic-language news sources based elsewhere, such as Sky News Arabia and Al-Jazeera. However, these pages saw an average increase in engagement of nearly 100%. Responding to our research, Meta pointed out that it had made no secret of "temporary product and policy measures" taken in October 2023. It said it had faced a challenge balancing the right to freedom of speech, with the fact that Hamas was both US-sanctioned and designated as a dangerous organisation under Meta's own policies. The tech giant also said that pages posting exclusively about the war were more likely to see engagement impacted. "We acknowledge we make mistakes, but any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false," a spokesperson said. [failing to moderate online activity fairly] <https://www.hrw.org/report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censors...> Leaked Instagram documents ─────────────────────────── The BBC has also spoken to five former and current employees of Meta about the impact they say their company's policies have had on individual Palestinian users. One person, who spoke anonymously, shared leaked internal documents about a change made to Instagram's algorithm, which toughened the moderation of Palestinians commenting on Instagram posts. "Within a week of the Hamas attack, the code was changed essentially making it more aggressive towards Palestinian people," he said. Internal messages show that an engineer raised concerns about the order, worried that it could be "introducing a new bias into the system against Palestinian users". Meta confirmed it took the measure but said it had been necessary to respond to what it called a "spike in hateful content" coming out of the Palestinian territories. It said that policy changes put in place at the start of the Israel-Gaza war had now been reversed, but did not say when this happened. [...] "A lot of information can't be published as it is too graphic - for example if the [Israeli] army commits a massacre and we film it, the video won't spread," says Omar el Qataa, one of the few photojournalists who chose to stay in northern Gaza. --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- «Non è colpa nostra, siamo solo incompetenti nelle traduzioni dall'arabo». Saluti, 380° -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.
380° <g380@biscuolo.net> writes:
siccome l'ha detto la BBC _sicuramente_ ora lo sanno tutti quindi la mia segnalazione dovrebbe essere inutile, comunque:
«How Facebook restricted news in Palestinian territories» https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c786wlxz4jgo
by Ahmed Nour, Joe Tidy and Yara Farag, Dec. 18 2024
adesso lo dice la BBC con un pregevole (?) lavoro di inchiesta giornalistica... Esattamente un anno fa lo diceva Human Right Watch in un report di 51 pagine: «Meta: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content» https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/12/20/meta-systemic-censorship-palestine-conte... --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8--- The 51-page report, “Meta's Broken Promises: Systemic Censorship of Palestine Content on Instagram and Facebook,” documents a pattern of undue removal and suppression of protected speech including peaceful expression in support of Palestine and public debate about Palestinian human rights. Human Rights Watch found that the problem stems from flawed Meta policies and their inconsistent and erroneous implementation, overreliance on automated tools to moderate content, and undue government influence over content removals. [Meta's Broken Promises] [...] Human Rights Watch reviewed 1,050 cases of online censorship from over 60 countries. Though they are not necessarily a representative analysis of censorship, the cases are consistent with years of [reporting] and advocacy by [Palestinian], [regional], and [international] human rights organizations detailing Meta's censorship of content supporting Palestinians. [...] Human Rights Watch identified six key patterns of censorship, each recurring in at least 100 instances: content removals, suspension or deletion of accounts, inability to engage with content, inability to follow or tag accounts, restrictions on the use of features such as Instagram/Facebook Live, and “shadow banning,” a term denoting a significant decrease in the visibility of an individual's posts, stories, or account without notification. In over 300 cases, users were unable to appeal content or account removal because the appeal mechanism malfunctioned, leaving them with no effective access to a remedy. In hundreds of the cases documented, Meta invoked its [“Dangerous Organizations and Individuals” (DOI) policy], which fully incorporates the United States designated lists of “terrorist organizations.” Meta has cited these lists and applied them sweepingly to restrict legitimate speech around hostilities between Israel and Palestinian armed groups. Meta also misapplied its policies on [violent and graphic content], [violence and incitement], [hate speech], and [nudity and sexual activity]. It has inconsistently applied its [“newsworthy allowance”] policy, removing dozens of pieces of content documenting Palestinian injury and death that has news value, Human Rights Watch said. Meta is aware that its enforcement of these policies is flawed. In a [2021 report], Human Rights Watch documented Facebook's censorship of the discussion of rights issues pertaining to Israel and Palestine and warned that Meta was “silencing many people arbitrarily and without explanation.” An independent investigation conducted by Business for Social Responsibility and commissioned by Meta [found] that the company's content moderation in 2021 “appear[s] to have had an adverse human rights impact on the rights of Palestinian users,” adversely affecting “the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights about their experiences as they occurred.” In 2022, in response to the investigation's [recommendations] as well as [guidance by Meta's Oversight Board], Meta made a commitment to make a series of changes to its policies and their enforcement in content moderation. Almost two years later, though, Meta has not carried out its commitments, and the company has failed to meet its human rights responsibilities, Human Rights Watch found. Meta's broken promises have replicated and amplified past patterns of abuse. [...] “Instead of tired apologies and empty promises, Meta should demonstrate that it is serious about addressing Palestine-related censorship once and for all by taking concrete steps toward transparency and remediation,” Brown said. [Meta's Broken Promises] </report/2023/12/21/metas-broken-promises/systemic-censorship-palestine-content-instagram-and> [reporting] <https://www.hrw.org/node/386981> [Palestinian] <https://7amleh.org/2018/10/29/7amleh-releases-policy-paper-facebook-and-pale...> [regional] <https://advox.globalvoices.org/2021/05/12/several-ngos-denounce-censorship-o...> [international] <https://www.accessnow.org/press-release/sheikh-jarrah-facebook-and-twitter-s...> [“Dangerous Organizations and Individuals” (DOI) policy] <https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/dangerous-individua...> [violent and graphic content] <https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/violent-graphic-con...> [violence and incitement] <https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/violence-incitement...> [hate speech] <https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/hate-speech/> [nudity and sexual activity] <https://transparency.fb.com/policies/community-standards/adult-nudity-sexual...> [“newsworthy allowance”] <https://transparency.fb.com/features/approach-to-newsworthy-content/> [2021 report] <https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/08/israel/palestine-facebook-censors-discus...> [found] <https://www.bsr.org/en/reports/meta-human-rights-israel-palestine> [recommendations] <https://www.bsr.org/en/reports/meta-human-rights-israel-palestine> [guidance by Meta's Oversight Board] <https://www.oversightboard.com/decision/FB-P93JPX02> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8--- «Non lo facciamo apposta, sono errori dell'algorirmo che /modera/; dopotutto siamo costretti a farlo, è per il vostro bene (non lo facciamo per sentirci dire grazie, cit.)!» [...] Saluti, 380° -- 380° (Giovanni Biscuolo public alter ego) «Noi, incompetenti come siamo, non abbiamo alcun titolo per suggerire alcunché» Disinformation flourishes because many people care deeply about injustice but very few check the facts. Ask me about <https://stallmansupport.org>.
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380°