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2024-027-TH-UA
Today, Thursday May 16, 2024, Oversight Board selected a case appealed by a Threads user regarding a reply to a Threads post. The post and reply contained statements about the failure of Japanese Prime Minister Kishida and his party to declare fundraising revenue.
Upon initial review, Meta took down this content for violating our policy on Violence and Incitement, as laid out in our Instagram Community Guidelines and Facebook Community Standards. However, upon additional review, we determined we removed this content in error and reinstated the post.
We determined the content does not violate our policies for a number of reasons. First, while the content uses the term “die,” read in context, we determined this was actually a political statement using figurative speech rather than a literal threat or call for death. Second, even if the term “die” were read literally, the content would not violate our Bullying and Harassment Policy because calls for death toward adult public figures are only violating under this policy when they purposefully expose the public figure to the call for death. Finally, under our Violence and Incitement Policy, even if the term “die” were read literally, the content would not be violating because we only prohibit calls for death of a high-risk person, such as heads of state, when the content uses the phrase “death to,” which this content did not use. By limiting removals to the content with the phrase “death to,” we aim to allow people to use figurative political speech while also protecting the targets of their anger from real-world danger.
We will implement the board’s decision once it has finished deliberating, and we will update this post accordingly. Please see the board’s website for the decision when they issue it.
Case decision
We welcome the Oversight Board’s decision today, September 10, 2024, on this case. The Board overturned Meta’s original decision to remove the content from Threads. Meta previously restored the content to Threads.
After conducting a review of the recommendations provided by the Board, we will update this post with initial responses to those recommendations.
