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From the River to the Sea Bundle

AŽURIRANO 1. STU 2024.

2024-004-FB-UA, 2024-005-FB-UA, 2024-006-UA

Today, May 7, 2024, the Oversight Board selected a case bundle appealed by Facebook users regarding three pieces of content that employ the phrase “From the River to the Sea” in reference to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Meta determined that each of the three pieces of content did not violate our policies on Violence and Incitement, Hate Speech, or Dangerous Organizations and Individuals, as laid out in the Facebook Community Standards, and left the content up.

Our Violence and Incitement policy prohibits “violent speech targeting a person or group of people on the basis of their protected characteristic(s).” Similarly, under our Hate Speech policy, we prohibit direct attacks against people based on their protected characteristics, which includes “statements of inferiority, expressions of contempt or disgust; cursing; and calls for exclusion or segregation” based on a person’s protected characteristics. In reviewing the phrase “From the River to the Sea” in the aftermath of the attacks of October 7, 2023 and Israel’s response, some stakeholders have shared that they view the phrase as anti-semitic or as a threat to the State of Israel. Others have shared that they use the phrase in support of the Palestinian people and believe that calling it anti-semitic is either inaccurate or rooted in Islamophobia. Based on these differing views of the phrase, Meta cannot conclude, without additional context, that the users in the content in question are using the phrase as a call to violence against a group based on their protected characteristics or to advocate for the exclusion of a particular group.

Our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy prohibits “glorification…of various dangerous organizations and individuals,” which we define as “legitimizing or defending the violent or hateful acts of a designated entity by claiming that those acts have a moral, political, logical or other justification that makes them acceptable or reasonable.” Meta is aware that the phrase is not linked exclusively to Hamas and, furthermore, none of the three pieces of content in this case bundle suggest support for Hamas or glorifies the organization.

As we’ve said previously, given the discourse surrounding events in the Middle East we believe it’s important to assess our guidance for reviewing content. That work is ongoing and we are committed to better understanding the potential impacts on different communities. We will implement the board’s decision once it has finished deliberating, and will update this post accordingly. Please see the Board's website for the decision when it is issued.

Read the board’s case selection summary

Case decision

We welcome the Oversight Board’s decision today, September 4, 2024, on this case. The Board upheld Meta’s decision to leave up the content in all three cases.

After conducting a review of the recommendations provided by the Board, we will update this post with initial responses to those recommendations.

Recommendations

Recommendation 1 (Assessing Feasibility)

Meta should ensure that qualified researchers, civil society organizations and journalists, who previously had access to CrowdTangle, are onboarded to the company’s new Content Library within three weeks of submitting their application.

The Board will consider this implemented when Meta provides the Board with a complete list of researchers and organizations that previously had access to CrowdTangle, and the turnaround time it took to onboard them to the Meta Content Library, at least 75% of which should be three weeks or less.

Our commitment: We will continue our work to ensure that qualified researchers, members of civil society organizations, and journalists who conduct research and who maintain an affiliation with a qualified non-profit or academic institution are onboarded in a timely manner to Meta Content Library to ensure broad accessibility, and will assess opportunities to expedite the onboarding process.

Considerations: As a company, we’re committed to sharing data that supports public interest research in a responsible and privacy-protecting way, to enable independent study of key social issues and Meta’s impact on the world. We take the safety and privacy of our users very seriously, including individuals and organizations that use our research tools. Sharing lists of previously onboarded users of CrowdTangle goes against the principles of our industry-leading privacy program, which prevents us from being able to share this list at any point in the future. With that said, we continue to accelerate our efforts to onboard eligible individuals to Meta Content Library and Content Library API and have already onboarded nearly all third-party fact checkers.

Individuals from qualified academic and not-for-profit institutions pursuing scientific or public interest research topics (including many who previously had access to CrowdTangle) may apply for access to Meta Content Library through a highly qualified, independent partner. To handle these access requests, Meta has partnered with the University of Michigan’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), which has deep expertise in secure data-sharing for research purposes. To apply, individuals submit an application through ICPSR’s Social Media Archive (SOMAR) initiative’s webpage. SOMAR is housed within ICPSR and aims to provide a centralized repository for social media research data. The SOMAR Application Guide for Meta Content Library and Content Library API is also available to help individuals complete SOMAR’s application form and prepare the required documentation. Recently, Meta and ICPSR made improvements to streamline the application process, addressing common questions and feedback received from applicants. For example, ICPSR determined that Meta Content Library is a data source that does not require researchers to submit Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval documentation from their affiliated institution, reducing the amount of documentation needed for researchers to submit their proposals. While applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis, such improvements contribute to an overall reduction of application review time and enable broader access to the tools. Occasionally, applications submitted for review may be incomplete – requiring requests for additional information. This extends the onboarding timeline as applicants must gather and submit additional or updated information. However, the aforementioned application guide outlines what is required from applicants and is revised as needed. Moving forward, we will assess other potential opportunities to increase the efficiency of the onboarding process and will report on progress in future reports to the Board.

Recommendation 2 (Implementing in Part)

Meta should ensure the Meta Content Library is a suitable replacement for CrowdTangle, which provides equal or greater functionality and data access.

The Board will consider this implemented when a survey of a representative sample of onboarded researchers, civil society organizations and journalists shows that at least 75% believe they are able to reasonably continue, reproduce or conduct new research of public interest, using the Meta Content Library. This survey should be carried out longitudinally if necessary, and the results of its first iteration should be shared with the Board no later than Q1, 2025.

Our commitment: We are committed to ensuring Meta Content Library is an effective research tool. We will continue engaging with onboarded individuals to understand opportunities to improve this tool and will share our takeaways from these conversations with the Oversight Board in a future confidential briefing.

Considerations: We want to make more high quality data from our platforms accessible to individuals pursuing public interest or scientific research, while doing so in a way that respects both people’s privacy and our compliance obligations. For example, Meta Content Library displays a wider volume of content from recognized individuals and/or organizations than legacy tools, but also seeks to respect the data privacy expectations of ordinary users by implementing a follower count threshold minimum or legacy verified badge for Facebook profiles and personal Instagram accounts. Recently, this threshold was lowered from 25K to 1K followers, further ensuring Meta Content Library users have access to more representative data.

Together, Meta Content Library and Content Library API provide comprehensive access to publicly-accessible content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads (access to Threads was made available as of September 26, 2024). Specifically, Meta Content Library includes public posts across Facebook, Instagram and Threads with useful sorting and filtering options, including language, view count, media type, and content producer. It also allows users to download publicly-accessible content posted by widely-known figures and organizations. These tools are built using Meta’s own technical infrastructure and can therefore accommodate larger volumes of publicly accessible content, making them capable of providing much more comprehensive and accurate data than legacy tools. This October, we made two new content types available by adding Instagram and Facebook Story Highlights. As we continue to expand the data scope, utility features, and underlying infrastructure of Meta Content Library, we are working to provide a more comprehensive and accurate review of public, organic (non ad) content circulating on our platforms.

In the months since we rolled out our Meta Content Library tool we’ve been engaging with onboarded users, including the Oversight Board, to ensure the type of publicly-accessible data they need is available in a way that’s effective for research. Based on takeaways from these conversations, we have been continuously adding new data and features to the tool. For example, we added comments and posts in Groups and Events as available data types. Additionally, users can now search text in images, significantly improving the search functionality of the tool overall.

Our user feedback comes from direct engagements and focuses on specific improvement areas, allowing us to provide more direct support for users whose goals for and experience with the tool may vary. Through this approach, we can also identify larger trends or gaps where large-scale improvements, as described above, may be the appropriate solution. We look forward to continuing these engagements and will share takeaways with the Board in a future confidential briefing.

Recommendation 3 (Assessing Feasibility)

Meta should implement recommendation no. 16 from the BSR Human Rights Due Diligence of Meta’s Impacts in Israel and Palestine report to develop a mechanism to track the prevalence of content attacking people on the basis of specific protected characteristics (for example, antisemitic, Islamophobic and homophobic content).

The Board will consider this recommendation implemented when Meta publishes the results of its first assessment of these metrics and issues a public commitment on how the company will continue to monitor and leverage those results.

Our commitment: As shared in recent updates to the recommendations from the BSR Human Rights Due Diligence of Meta’s Impacts in Israel and Palestine, we are continuing to assess potential approaches to implementing this recommendation.

Considerations: We continue to assess the feasibility of this recommendation. Most recently, we tested a potential method to assess whether we can measure differences in product experiences across race and ethnicity. Following that testing, we are exploring further options to assess whether product and system differences exist across race and ethnicity and to accurately disaggregate attacks based on specific protected classes, while balancing privacy concerns.

We will consult with representative groups and experts as we move forward and will share an update on this work in our next public report on the Oversight Board.