Facebook's broad definition of terrorism threatens legitimate opponents of repression, UN Rapporteur says in letter to company.
(...) The role of companies like Facebook in setting their own community standards and enforcing them for billions of users worldwide also illustrates the increasing influence wielded by the private sector in setting social and security norms.
Instead of charting its own course, Ní Aoláin encourages Facebook to align its practices with the framework articulated by the U.N. Human Rights Council. Definitions should be “compatible with standards set by international law, including international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” she writes.
(...) It is unclear where the Facebook definition originated, whether experts were consulted, or if it is grounded in any legal principles, Ní Aoláin wrote.
Ní Aoláin notes that other offenses covered by Facebook’s broad definition but not fitting the special rapporteur’s precise definition still “may amount to advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” Such posts may well be appropriately censored, but an over-expansive definition of terrorism is not needed to do so.
Beyond the broad standards articulated in the community standards, Facebook provides little insight into how it sets, evaluates, and enforces its rules, the rapporteur wrote.
“Detailed information on such procedures and the criteria that determine which incidents will be dealt with by AI, human moderators, or both is … not publicly available,” Ní Aoláin writes. As a result, it is difficult to predict what will and will not be removed. This compounds the broad definition’s chilling effect, as posters cannot predict in what manner their posts will be reviewed.
In an email to Just Security following the meeting with Facebook, Kaye stated, “This is not a Facebook only issue – it’s something that all social and search platforms need to address.”
In a recent report to the United Nations on the subject, Kaye raised concerns that companies trying to regulate their users’ content, including Twitter and Facebook, have adopted “excessively vague” definitions of terrorism and dangerous organizations.
Ní Aoláin’s letter “highlights how the Facebook definition diverges from international practice,” Kaye told Just Security. He explained his concerns about the effects of that divergence.
