The complete ban did not take into account the linguistic complexity of the Arabic word «shaheed», which has several meanings in translation.
Meta has long applied a policy of a complete ban on the word «shaheed», as it has become the most moderated word in the company’s programs, primarily on Facebook. However, according to the recommendations of Meta’s supervisory board will cancel this restriction — because the word has several meanings, depending on the context.
«Shaheed» translates literally as shaheed, or witness — for Muslims and Orthodox Arabs is most often used in the sense of «martyr for the faith» (in Ukraine, unfortunately, this word has a completely different meaning)
According to the supervisory board’s report, Meta’s previous policy did not take into account «linguistic complexity», which led to a disproportionate number of deletions of posts with the commonly used word — in particular, Arabic-speaking users who «have been subjected to unfair censorship».
«The Board welcomes Meta’s announcement today that it will implement our recommendations and make changes to the unfair policies that have led to the censorship of millions of people on its platforms,» the Board said in a statement. «The changes will take a more nuanced approach to moderation».
Questions about Facebook’s content moderation system arise regularly — from Ukraine, they increased after the full-scale invasion, when the social network began blocking Ukrainians for posts about the war. Meanwhile, the company has not been able to overcome the invasion of Russian propaganda and bots, despite a personal appeal from the Ministry of Digital Transformation in July 2012.
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