Meta’s oversight board on Tuesday called on the company to end its blanket ban on the Arabic word “shaheed,” or “martyr” in English, after a year-long review found the Facebook owner’s approach was “overbroad” and had unnecessarily suppressed the speech of millions of users.
The board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, said the social media giant should remove posts containing the word “shaheed” only when they are linked to clear signs of violence or if they separately break other Meta rules.
The ruling comes after years of criticism of the company’s handling of content involving the Middle East, including in a 2021 study Meta itself commissioned that found its approach had an “adverse human rights impact” on Palestinians and other Arabic-speaking users of its services.
“Meta has been operating under the assumption that censorship can and will improve safety, but the evidence suggests that censorship can marginalize whole populations while not improving safety at all,” Oversight Board co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt said in a statement.
According to the board’s report, the company says the word constitutes praise for those entities, as the Meta Oversight Board reached similar conclusions in its report on Tuesday, finding Meta’s rules on “shaheed” failed to account for the word’s variety of meanings and resulted in the removal of content not aimed at praising violent actions.
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