Meta to Review Moderation of Arabic Word 'Shaheed'

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The Facts

  • Meta Platforms' oversight board on Thursday announced it would review the moderation approach to the Arabic word "shaheed," as it accounts for more content removals on its platforms than any other single word or phrase.

  • The word "shaheed" has multiple meanings in Arabic and is used to refer to someone who was a "witness" to an event and to describe people who have died in "sacrifice" to a sacred cause.

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The Spin

Narrative A

Meta is finally evaluating its moderation policies to stop the unlawful censorship of Arabic-speaking people. Meta's practices have violated Arabic-speaking users and the rights of Palestinians by targeting their posts, even those by news organizations, to a higher degree than other posts. It's high time that Meta put an end to this over-enforcement.

Al Jazeera

Narrative B

Meta should have priorities other than just reviewing the moderation of the Arabic word "shaheed" as the algorithm of its flagship platform Facebook has automatically generated dozens of pages for Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations despite its policy to outright ban them.

Jerusalem Post