.jpg "At the material time, Dr Mahathir had posted a series of tweets on Twitter addressing the attack, which saw three people knifed to death and several others injured; he said Muslims also deserve to be angry and a boycott against the republic will not even suffice. — Picture by Shafwan Zaidon")
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 2 — A Facebook content oversight board announced today it would hear a user’s appeal over a post that was removed for violating the site’s policies due to screenshots of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s remarks about an October terrorist attack in France.
The board said the case was one of six it selected for review after more than 20,000 cases were referred to it following the opening of user appeals in October.
In the case referred to by a user, the board said the former had posted a screenshot of two tweets by Dr Mahathir but did not add a caption alongside the screenshots but Facebook subsequently removed the post for violating its policy on hate speech.
“As the Board cannot hear every appeal, we are prioritising cases that have the potential to affect lots of users around the world, are of critical importance to public discourse or raise important questions about Facebook’s policies.
“The user indicated in their appeal to the Oversight Board that they wanted to raise awareness of the former prime minister’s horrible words,” it said.
At the material time, Dr Mahathir had posted a series of tweets on Twitter addressing the attack, which saw three people knifed to death and several others injured; he said Muslims also deserve to be angry and a boycott against the republic will not even suffice.
The tweet that drew condemnation read, “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”
It was followed by, “But by and large the Muslims have not applied the ‘eye for an eye’ law. Muslims do not. The French should not. Instead the French should teach their people to respect other people’s feelings.”
The aforementioned tweets were initially flagged for “glorifying violence” but were left online, with Twitter citing its policy on keeping tweets of public interest. Subsequently the tweet was completely removed for violating its rules.
In the same announcement, the Facebook board also announced the opening of the public comment process on the six cases being deliberated on.
“An important part of the Board’s process for reviewing cases is gathering additional insights and expertise from individuals and organisations who may be able to help inform decisions.
“To that end, we have established a public comment process to invite subject matter experts and other interested groups to share relevant research and information that may help the Oversight Board deliberate specific cases.
“This input will allow Board Members to tap into more knowledge, expertise and context, as cases will cover a variety of issues and geographies,” it said.
The public comment window for the cases announced is open for seven days, closing at 8am Eastern Standard Time (9pm local time) on December 8.
The Oversight Board is a global body of experts that makes content moderation decisions on the social media platform Facebook, specifically about handling appeals for blocked or removed content.
It will make binding decisions on that content, which means Facebook must implement them unless doing so could violate the law. The board will also be able to issue policy recommendations.
Members of the board do not include current or former employees or contingent workers of the Facebook company.