9/7/24, 14:07
Violence against women | Consejo asesor de contenido
The content creator appealed Meta’s decision on the same day, and one of the reviewers who had
already examined the content upheld the removal. After this, about an hour after the content had
initially been posted, it was automatically sent to a High Impact False Positive Override (HIPO)
channel, which aims to identify wrongfully removed content. This resulted in the content being sent
to the same two reviewers who had originally examined the content. Both reviewers decided once
again that the post violated the Hate Speech policy. In total, the content was examined seven times
by the same two human reviewers who, on every occasion, found the content to be violating.
As a result of the Board selecting this appeal, Meta reviewed the relevant post and determined that
its decision to remove it was in error, restored it, and reversed the strike.
While the Board began to assess the first post, it received another appeal from the same user. This
concerned an Instagram video of a woman speaking in Swedish and pointing at words written in
Swedish on a notepad. In the video, the speaker says that although she is a man-hater, she does
not hate all men. She further explains that this means she talks about and condemns violence
against women, and that these feelings of hate are rooted in fear of violence. Within this discussion
of fear, the person in the video draws an analogy between venomous snakes and men who commit
violence against women. She notes that although many snakes are not poisonous, the fact that
some are impacts how people approach them in general, just as the fear towards men stems from a
worldwide social problem of violence against women. In the caption of the post, the user calls on
men who are “allies” to help women in their fight. The post was viewed around 150,000 times.
Following user reports, Meta removed the content of the second post for violating the Hate Speech
policy and again applied a strike against the account, preventing the user from creating live videos.
On the same day, the content creator appealed Meta’s removal, but the company upheld its original
decision after human review. After being informed that the Board had selected this case, Meta did
not change its position.
When assessing cases, the Board notes as relevant context research, reporting, and public
comments that highlight similar issues. Since at least 2017, digital campaigns have highlighted that
Facebook’s hate speech policies result in the removal of phrases associated with calling attention to
gender-based violence and harassment. For example, women and activists have coordinated
posting phrases such as “men are trash” and “ men are scum” and protested their subsequent
removal on the grounds of being anti-men hate speech.
Meta, itself, has reflected on the complexities of its policy approach to gender-based hate speech. In
2019, Mark Zuckerberg explained his rationale for considering such posts hate speech, citing the
challenges the company perceived in enforcing a policy that acknowledged power differences
https://www.oversightboard.com/decision/ig-h3138h6s/?lang=es
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