Human rights group accuses Meta of restricting pro-Palestine speech

人权组织指责 Meta 限制支持巴勒斯坦的言论

Facebook, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram icons displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on April 6, 2022.

这张插图照片于 2022 年 4 月 6 日在波兰克拉科夫拍摄，手机屏幕上显示 Facebook、WhatsApp、Messenger 和 Instagram 图标。

Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Meta of repeatedly removing or restricting content supporting Palestine or Palestinian human rights even when it did not violate the social media giant’s rules.

The report raises concerns about examples of “peaceful” pro-Palestine content that it said the company removed although the content did not violate any policies. The group also calls on Meta to change or share more information around several policies and moderation decisions, including government takedown requests and when it makes “newsworthiness” exceptions to leave up content that violates its policies.

“Meta should permit protected expression, including about human rights abuses and political movements, on its platforms,” Human Rights Watch said in the report, and urged Meta to consistently enforce its policies for all users.

人权观察周四指责 Meta 多次删除或限制支持巴勒斯坦或巴勒斯坦人权的内容，即使这些内容没有违反这家社交媒体巨头的规则。

该报告对一些“和平”亲巴勒斯坦内容的例子表示担忧，称该公司删除了这些内容，尽管这些内容没有违反任何政策。该组织还呼吁 Meta 改变或分享有关多项政策和审核决定的更多信息，包括政府删除请求以及何时做出“新闻价值”例外以保留违反其政策的内容。

人权观察在报告中表示：“Meta 应该允许在其平台上进行受保护的言论，包括有关侵犯人权和政治运动的言论。”并敦促 Meta 始终如一地为所有用户执行其政策。

While Human Rights Watch provided broad characterizations of content that was removed, the group provided limited specifics on the hundreds of posts it said were removed or restricted and did not provide screenshots.

The group said it identified more than 1,000 of pieces of pro-Palestine content that it claims did not violate Meta’s rules but that were restricted or removed during October and November 2023.

That included posts with images of injured or dead bodies in Gaza hospitals and comments saying, “Free Palestine” and “Stop the Genocide.” In another instance, the group said a user tried to post a comment that consisted of nothing more than a series of Palestinian flag emojis and was met with a warning from Instagram that her comment “may be hurtful to others.”

虽然人权观察组织对被删除的内容进行了广泛的描述，但该组织仅提供了数百条被删除或限制的帖子的有限细节，并且没有提供屏幕截图。

该组织表示，它发现了 1000 多条支持巴勒斯坦的内容，声称这些内容没有违反 Meta 的规则，但在 2023 年 10 月和 11 月期间被限制或删除。

其中包括带有加沙医院受伤或尸体图片的帖子，以及“自由巴勒斯坦”和“停止种族灭绝”的评论。在另一个例子中，该组织表示，一名用户试图发表一条仅由一系列巴勒斯坦国旗表情符号组成的评论，并收到 Instagram 的警告，称她的评论“可能会伤害他人”。

The group does not claim in the report that pro-Palestine supporters faced over-enforcement more than other groups.

Meta said in a statement that the Human Rights Watch report doesn’t reflect its efforts to protect speech related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“This report ignores the realities of enforcing our policies globally during a fast-moving, highly polarized and intense conflict, which has led to an increase in content being reported to us,” Meta said in the statement provided by spokesperson Ben Walters.

该组织并未在报告中声称亲巴勒斯坦支持者比其他团体面临更多的过度执法。

梅塔在一份声明中表示，人权观察组织的报告并未反映其为保护与以色列-哈马斯冲突有关的言论所做的努力。

梅塔在发言人本·沃尔特斯（Ben Walters）提供的声明中表示：“这份报告忽视了在快速发展、高度两极分化和激烈冲突期间在全球范围内执行我们政策的现实，这导致向我们报告的内容增加。”

“Our policies are designed to give everyone a voice while at the same time keeping our platforms safe,” the statement said. “We readily acknowledge we make errors that can be frustrating for people, but the implication that we deliberately and systemically suppress a particular voice is false. Claiming that 1,000 examples — out of the enormous amount of content posted about the conflict — are proof of ‘systemic censorship’ may make for a good headline, but that doesn’t make the claim any less misleading.”

声明称：“我们的政策旨在让每个人都有发言权，同时保持我们平台的安全。” “我们欣然承认我们犯了一些可能让人们感到沮丧的错误，但暗示我们故意、系统地压制特定声音的说法是错误的。声称 1,000 个例子——在发布的关于冲突的大量内容中——是‘系统性审查制度’的证据，可能会成为一个很好的标题，但这并不能减少这种说法的误导性。”

Ongoing scrutiny of moderation around the war

围绕战争进行的温和审查

Thursday’s report is just the latest scrutiny that Meta and other social media companies have faced over their handling of content related to the Israel-Hamas war.

It follows a decision by Meta’s own Oversight Board earlier this week to overturn the company’s original decision to remove two videos related to the conflict that the board said showed important information about human suffering on both sides of the issue.

周四的报告只是 Meta 和其他社交媒体公司因处理以色列-哈马斯战争相关内容而面临的最新审查。

此前，Meta 自己的监督委员会于本周早些时候 做出了一项决定，推翻了该公司删除两段与冲突相关的视频的最初决定，该委员会称这些视频显示了有关问题双方人类苦难的重要信息。

Those critiques came after Meta and other platforms came under fire earlier in the conflict for failing to remove potentially harmful or misleading content, highlighting the balancing act the company must play: Remove enough content quickly to prevent potential harms, without over-enforcing its rules in a way that infringes upon free expression.

Adding to the challenge is the contentious nature of the conflict, where there isn’t always agreement on what constitutes harm. For example, the Thursday report from Human Rights Watch criticized Meta’s removal of some comments and posts with the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — a phrase that some see as a call for a Palestinian state and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians, but others view as antisemitic, anti-Israel and potentially violent.

Human Rights Watch also took issue with Meta’s inclusion of Hamas in the its Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy, based on the United States government designation of the group as a terrorist organization, saying that the company should instead rely on “international human rights standards.”

这些批评是在 Meta 和其他平台因未能删除潜在有害或误导性内容而受到批评之后提出的，突显了该公司必须采取的平衡行动：迅速删除足够的内容以防止潜在的危害，同时又不过度执行其规则一种侵犯言论自由的方式。

冲突的争议性质加剧了挑战，人们并不总是就什么构成伤害达成一致。例如，人权观察周四的报告批评梅塔删除了一些带有“从河流到大海，巴勒斯坦将自由”口号的评论和帖子——一些人认为这句话是在呼吁建立巴勒斯坦国和巴勒斯坦与巴勒斯坦之间的共存。以色列人和巴勒斯坦人，但其他人则认为他们是反犹太主义、反以色列的，并且有潜在的暴力倾向。

人权观察还对 Meta 将哈马斯纳入其危险组织和个人政策提出了质疑，因为美国政府将哈马斯列为恐怖组织，并表示该公司应该依赖“国际人权标准”。

“The US list includes political movements that have armed wings, such as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine,” the report states, adding that Meta should publish the full list of organizations covered by its dangerous organizations policy. “The ways in which Meta enforces this policy effectively bans many posts that endorse major Palestinian political movements and quells the discussion around Israel and Palestine.”

Hamas been responsible for significant, bloody violence over the years against Israelis and opponents in Gaza. Its attack on October 7 claimed the lives of more than 1,200 people. Hamas is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.

报告指出：“美国的名单包括拥有武装力量的政治运动，例如哈马斯和解放巴勒斯坦人民阵线。”并补充说，Meta 应公布其危险组织政策所涵盖的完整组织名单。“Meta 执行这一政策的方式有效地禁止了许多支持巴勒斯坦主要政治运动的帖子，并平息了围绕以色列和巴勒斯坦的讨论。”

多年来，哈马斯对以色列人和加沙反对派实施了严重的血腥暴力。10 月 7 日的袭击夺去了 1,200 多人的生命。哈马斯被美国、欧盟和以色列认定为恐怖组织。

The Thursday report says of Meta’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy that, “understandably, the policy prohibits incitement to violence. However, it also contains sweeping bans on vague categories of speech, such as ‘praise’ and ‘support’ of ‘dangerous organizations,’ which it relies heavily on the United States government’s designated lists of terrorist organizations to define.”

周四的报告在谈到 Meta 的危险组织和个人政策时表示，“可以理解的是，该政策禁止煽动暴力。然而，它还全面禁止模糊类别的言论，例如“赞扬”和“支持”“危险组织”，这些言论在很大程度上依赖于美国政府指定的恐怖组织名单来定义。

“The ways in which Meta enforces this policy effectively bans many posts that endorse major Palestinian political movements and quells the discussion around Israel and Palestine,” the report said, adding that Meta should publish the full list of groups and people covered by the policy.

Meta in August updated the Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy to allow for references to those groups and people in the context of social and political discourse.

The company said it is also planning to roll out a revised version of the policy in the first half of next year, after a review of its definition of “praise” of dangerous organizations, it said in September.

报告称：“Meta 执行这项政策的方式有效地禁止了许多支持巴勒斯坦主要政治运动的帖子，并平息了围绕以色列和巴勒斯坦的讨论。”并补充说，Meta 应该公布该政策所涵盖的团体和人员的完整名单。

Meta 于 8 月更新了危险组织和个人政策，允许在社会和政治话语背景下提及这些团体和个人。

该公司在 9 月份 表示，在审查了“赞扬”危险组织的定义后，还计划在明年上半年推出该政策的修订版。

Human Rights Watch conducted its review by soliciting emails from Facebook and Instagram users with screenshots and other evidence of their content being removed or restricted.

Reports came from more than 60 countries in a number of languages, primarily English, and most “carried a diversity of messages while sharing a singular characteristic: the peaceful expression in support of Palestine or Palestinians,” according to the group. Human Rights Watch said it excluded cases where it could not substantiate the claims of unjustified removal or where the content could be “considered incitement to violence, discrimination, or hostility.”

Among the concerns raised in the report is a critique of Meta’s “heavy reliance” on automation to moderate content. The group said it received reports, for example, of users’ pro-Palestine comments being removed automatically and marked as “spam.”

人权观察组织通过向 Facebook 和 Instagram 用户征求电子邮件来进行审查，其中包含屏幕截图和其他内容被删除或限制的证据。

该组织称，报告来自 60 多个国家，使用多种语言（主要是英语），大多数报告“传达了多种信息，但都有一个共同特点：支持巴勒斯坦或巴勒斯坦人的和平表达”。人权观察表示，它排除了无法证实不合理删除指控或内容可能“被视为煽动暴力、歧视或敌意”的情况。

报告中提出的担忧之一是对 Meta “严重依赖”自动化来审核内容的批评。该组织表示，它收到了一些报告，例如，用户支持巴勒斯坦的评论被自动删除并标记为“垃圾邮件”。

Meta’s Oversight Board this week also called out the company’s use of automated systems to moderate content — it found that two videos related to the Israel-Hamas war, which it said showed important information about human suffering on both sides of the conflict, were initially unnecessarily removed by the automated tools.

Meta restored the videos after the board decided to review them, prior to this week’s decision.

“Both expression and safety are important to us and the people who use our services,” the company said in a blog post earlier this week.

Meta 的监督委员会本周还谴责该公司使用自动化系统来审核内容——它发现两段与以色列-哈马斯战争有关的视频最初是不必要的，据称这些视频显示了有关冲突双方人类苦难的重要信息由自动化工具删除。

在董事会决定审查这些视频后，在本周做出决定之前，Meta 恢复了这些视频。

该公司在本周早些时候的一篇博客文章中表示：“表达和安全对我们和使用我们服务的人都很重要。”

Meta also told CNN in October that it had established “a special operations center staffed with experts, including fluent Hebrew and Arabic speakers, to closely monitor and respond to this rapidly evolving situation,” and that it was coordinating with third-party fact checkers in the region.

Meta 还在 10 月份告诉 CNN，它已经建立了“一个由专家组成的特别行动中心，其中包括能说流利希伯来语和阿拉伯语的专家，以密切监视和应对这一迅速发展的局势”，并且正在与第三方事实核查人员进行协调该区域。