4/10/22, 10:45 Oversight Board | Independent Judgment. Transparency. Legitimacy. The enforcement actions taken in this case (the content removal, strikes, and feature-limitations), should not have been imposed as there was no underlying violation of the Community Standards. The Board is concerned that Meta’s systems for preventing enforcement errors of this kind were ineffective, particularly given the severity of the sanctions imposed. The Board notes that in this case, the page of the news outlet was previously subject to cross-check, but as part of a platform wide update to the cross-check system, the page was not subject to cross-check when the case content was reviewed, and cross-check did not impact the review of the case content. In Meta's current cross-check system, guaranteed secondary human review is provided to users on the Early Response Secondary Review List. While some news outlets’ Facebook pages are on that list, this page is not. Being on an Early Response Secondary Review list also guarantees that Meta employees, and not at-scale reviewers, review the content before it can be removed. The Board finds it unlikely that this content would have been removed if the page were on the Early Response Secondary Review list at the time. The Board commends Meta for the introduction of its HIPO system but is concerned that it did not lead to secondary review of a post that conformed with Meta’s Community Standards. The content in this case did not receive an additional human review “due to the capacity allocated to the market” and because it was not given a priority score by Meta’s automated systems as high as other content in the HIPO queue at that time. Given the public interest nature of the reporting in this case, and the identity of the page as a news outlet posting the content, it should have scored highly enough for additional review to have taken place. As explained by Meta, the factor “entity sensitivity” takes the identity of the posting entity into account and can lead to a higher ranking for content from news outlets, especially those reporting on significant world events. For the same reasons, the Board is concerned that the Urdu language queue only had less than 50 reviewers in mid2022. The Board considers the size of the India market, the number of groups Meta has designated as dangerous in that region, and therefore the heightened importance of independent voices, warrant greater investment from the company in correcting (and ideally preventing) errors from occurring on such important issues. 8.2 Compliance with Meta’s values Content containing praise of dangerous groups may threaten the value of “Safety” for Meta’s users and others because of its links to offline violence and its potential to “intimidate, exclude or silence others.” However, there is no significant safety issue in this case as the content only reports on the announcement of a designated organization. “Voice” is particularly important in relation to media outlets as they provide their audiences with essential information and play a crucial role in holding governments to account. Removing the content in this case did not materially contribute to “Safety” and was an unnecessary restriction of “Voice.” 8.3 Compliance with Meta’s human rights responsibilities The Board finds that removing the content from the platform was inconsistent with Meta’s human rights responsibilities, and that Meta should have more effective systems in place for preventing and correcting such errors. Meta adhering to its human rights responsibilities is particularly important in the context of crisis or conflict situations. Following the forceful takeover of a government by a group renowned for human rights abuses and due to the importance of informing the public of the acts of such designated groups, the company should be particularly attentive to protecting news reporting about that group. Freedom of expression (Article 19 ICCPR) Article 19 of the ICCPR provides protection of the right to freedom of expression and encompasses the right of all individuals to impart information and to receive it. International human rights law places particular value on the role of journalism in providing information that is of interest to the public. The UN Human Rights Committee has stated that “a free, uncensored and unhindered press or other media is essential in any society to ensure freedom of opinion and expression and the enjoyment of other Covenant rights” (General Comment No. 34, at para. 13). Social media platforms like Facebook have become a vehicle for transmitting journalist's reporting around the world, and Meta has recognized its responsibilities to journalists and human rights defenders in its corporate human rights policy. The right to freedom of expression encompasses the ability of Meta’s users to access information about events of public interest in Afghanistan, especially when a designated dangerous group forcibly removed the recognized government. It is imperative that users, including commentators on Afghanistan within and outside the country, and the general public have access to real-time reporting on the situation there. The Taliban’s approach to media freedom in the country makes the role of international reporting even more important. The information in this case would be essential to people concerned about girls’ and women’s equal right to access education. This remains the case even when the Taliban fails to meet those commitments. Article 19, para. 3 of the ICCPR, as interpreted by the Human Rights Committee in General Comment No. 34, requires that where restrictions on https://www.oversightboard.com/decision/FB-U2HHA647 8/12