Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta must answer “serious questions” about its handling of anti-immigration material, according to the company’s content watchdog, as it opened an investigation into two Facebook posts.
The Oversight Board is investigating Meta’s decision to keep the posts online after acknowledging that it receives a significant number of complaints from users over content that shares anti-immigrant views.
Helle Thorning-Schmidt, co-chair of the board and a former Danish prime minister, said it was “critical” to get the balance right between free speech and protection of vulnerable groups.
“The high number of appeals we get on immigration-related content from across the EU tells us there are serious questions to ask about how the company handles issues related to this, including the use of coded speech,” she said in a statement.
The first case being investigated by the board is focused on a meme posted by the administrator of a Facebook page that describes itself as the official account of Poland’s far-right coalition party Confederation. The image shows Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, looking through a peephole with a black man walking up behind him. The text over the image, referring to Tusk’s Civic Platform party and the EU’s immigration pact, says: “Good evening, did you vote for Platform? I’ve brought the black people from the immigration pact.”
The word used by the text to describe black people is also considered to be a racial slur by some in Poland.
The second case features an image that appears to be generated by artificial intelligence and was posted on a German Facebook page that describes itself as being against left-leaning and green groups. The picture shows a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman holding up her hand in a stop gesture, with a stop sign and German flag in the background.
The text over the image says people should stop coming to Germany because the country doesn’t need any more “gang-rape specialists” as a result of the Green party’s immigration policy.
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The board, whose decisions are binding on Meta, said the cases would also allow it to consider the adequacy of the company’s hate speech policy. The policy states that its platforms “protect refugees, migrants, immigrants and asylum seekers from the most severe attacks” but allows “commentary and criticism of immigration policies”.