Jessica Corbett
Staff Writer | Common DreamJournalist Rania Khalek, whose video was restored after public outcry, says the ability of social media giants “to disappear content as they please” is “creepy and alarming and should be loudly opposed.”
After the New York Times on Thursday published an exposé of Facebook‘s global censorship rulebook, journalist Rania Khalek called out the social media giant for taking down a video in which she explains how, “on top of being occupied, colonized territory, Palestine is Israel’s personal laboratory for testing, refining, and showcasing methods and weapons of domination and control.”
Tweeting out the Times report—and noting that while, according to the newspaper, “moderators were told to hunt down and remove rumors wrongly accusing an Israeli soldier of killing a Palestinian medic,” Israeli soldiers did fatally shoot an unarmed 21-year-old female paramedic earlier this year—she announced Friday morning that Facebook had “just removed” her video.
Team Eglin took another step in the social networking realm today by launching the Team Eglin fan page on Facebook. | Photo: Team Eglin
“Fake accounts are not your friends.” – Facebook. As seen in Chicago. | Photo: Kevin Tao | Flickr
Facebook “moderators were told to hunt down and remove rumors wrongly accusing an Israeli soldier of killing a Palestinian medic.” https://t.co/uHEwcgDIjn
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) December 28, 2018
But the Israelis did kill a Palestinian medic...
Here is my video on how Israel uses Palestine as a weapons testing laboratory, which Facebook erased without explanation. https://t.co/kT6YvZpVPj
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) December 28, 2018
After she and other prominent reporters issued public complaints, Khalek announced a couple hours later that Facebook had restored the video. “Still this is a good reminder that at the moment these social media giants have the ability to disappear content as they please,” she said in a tweet. “It’s creepy and alarming and should be loudly opposed.”
This is why social media giants censoring content is bad. Eventually you’ll get censored
— Rania Khalek (@RaniaKhalek) December 28, 2018
Among those who highlighted Facebook’s censorship of Khalek’s video on Friday were Ben Norton of The Real News Network—who called it an “excellent, informative video report”—and The Intercept‘s Glenn Greenwald, who pointed out that the platform has been silencing Palestinian and pro-Palestinian voices for more than a year.
Facebook just removed this excellent, informative video report by @RaniaKhalek, in which she explained how Israel uses Palestine as a laboratory for weapons and military technology.
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) December 28, 2018
It gave no explanation for why the video was taken down.https://t.co/GN234qFy4K
THE SAN FRANCISCO PROMISE
Click to Learn More
Facebook has been aggressively deleting the pages of Palestinians and pro-Palestinian voices for at least 18 months, obeying the demands of the Israeli govt. Congrats to those who thought it was a good idea for Silicon Valley to act as paternal censor & guardian of the internet: https://t.co/BTs9JBvfwT
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 28, 2018
“In Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Sheryl Sandberg, and Eric Schmidt we trust to censor and regulate the internet with the most benevolent of motives, devoted as they’ve been their entire lives to safeguarding the voiceless and protecting the marginalized,” Greenwald sarcastically added, referring to Facebook’s CEO, Google’s CEO, Facebook’s COO, and the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.
The short and successful fight to restore Khalek’s video, however, is just one of countless instances of Facebook taking down content without providing an explanation to the user or the public. Max Fisher’s report for the Times offers a glimpse into its secretive but widely criticized censorship practices.
“Facebook, to address hate and misinformation epidemics of its own creation, is intervening into political and social matters the world over. Like an unseen branch of government, it is governing without our consent.”
What is World Federalism?
World Federal Government (WFG)
A review of 1,400 pages provided to the newspaper by a concerned employee—and verified as authentic by Facebook, which supposedly has made some updates—”revealed numerous gaps, biases, and outright errors,” Fisher wrote. “The closely held rules are extensive, and they make the company a far more powerful arbiter of global speech than has been publicly recognized or acknowledged by the company itself.”
While Facebook claimed the rulebook is for training, moderators—who “describe feeling in over their heads” as they try to make decisions in as little as eight-to-10 seconds—told Fisher they reference it regularly. And though Facebook staff reportedly craft moderation rules in meetings every other week, “the company outsources much of the actual post-by-post moderation to companies that enlist largely unskilled workers, many hired out of call centers.”
The lengthy and arguably confusing guidance that Facebook gives to moderators has produced mixed and, at times, alarming results. As Fisher noted, “They have allowed extremist language to flourish in some countries while censoring mainstream speech in others.” He explained:
Moderators were once told, for example, to remove fundraising appeals for volcano victims in Indonesia because a co-sponsor of the drive was on Facebook’s internal list of banned groups. In Myanmar, a paperwork error allowed a prominent extremist group, accused of fomenting genocide, to stay on the platform for months. In India, moderators were mistakenly told to take down comments critical of religion.
Solving Global Problems
We can work together to make the world better
The key takeaway from his report, Fisher said on Twitter, is two-fold: Facebook “is intervening into political and social matters the world over,” acting “like an unseen branch of government,” and “is doing this all on the cheap, shipping disorganized PowerPoint slides to outsourcing companies it can barely control. And it is making many, many mistakes along the way.”
(2) Facebook is doing this all on the cheap, shipping disorganized PowerPoint slides to outsourcing companies it can barely control. And it is making many, many mistakes along the way.
— Max Fisher (@Max_Fisher) December 27, 2018
Original Publisher
Common DreamsJessica Corbett writing has been published by The Nation, In These Times, The Ithaca Voice, London’s Peace News, and Common Dreams, where she is currently a staff writer. She has fact-checked for Rolling Stone, VICE, and Splinter (formerly Fusion). Her work in journalism primarily explores the intersection of politics, public health, and environmental policy. She also writes about human and civil rights, gender, and labor issues.
DWF News
Just a smiling visitant here to share the love (:, btw great design. “Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.” by Benjamin Disraeli.
Thanks!
Hello There. I found your blog using msn. This is a really well written article.
I’ll be sure to bookmark it and return to read more of your useful info.
Thanks for the post. I will certainly return.
I visited many web pages however the audio quality for
audio songs existing at this web site is in fact fabulous.
Thanks for finally writing about >Facebook’s Secret Censorship
Manual Exposed as Platform Takes Down Video About Israel Terrorizing Palestinians | Democratic
World Federalists <Liked it!
What’s up colleagues, pleasant piece of writing and nice arguments commented here, I am really
enjoying by these.
This website was… how do you say it? Relevant!!
Finally I have found something which helped me. Thank you!
Great work! This is the kind of information that are meant to be shared around the web.
Shame on the search engines for no longer positioning
this post upper! Come on over and visit my web site .
Thanks =)
Howdy! Do you know if they make any plugins to help with Search Engine Optimization? I’m trying to get my blog to rank for
some targeted keywords but I’m not seeing very good success.
If you know of any please share. Appreciate it!
Thanks for a marvelous posting! I definitely enjoyed reading
it, you could be a great author. I will ensure that I bookmark your blog
and may come back down the road. I want to
encourage you continue your great writing, have a nice weekend!
It is in reality a great and useful piece of information. I am glad that you simply
shared this useful information with us. Please stay
us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.
Tremendous issues here. I’m very glad to peer your post.
Thanks so much and I’m having a look forward to contact you.
Will you please drop me a mail?
Have you ever thought about publishing an ebook or guest authoring on other websites?
I have a blog based on the same subjects you discuss and would love to
have you share some stories/information. I know my readers
would appreciate your work. If you’re even remotely interested, feel free to
shoot me an e-mail.
I am really enjoying the theme/design of your website.
Do you ever run into any web browser compatibility problems?
A handful of my blog visitors have complained about my website not
working correctly in Explorer but looks great in Safari. Do
you have any ideas to help fix this problem?
I pay a visit every day some web pages and sites
to read content, except this blog gives feature based posts.
Very quickly this website will be famous among all blog viewers, due to it’s fastidious posts
Hello! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could get a captcha plugin for my comment form?
I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having problems finding one?
Thanks a lot!
This does interest me
My brother suggested I might like this blog. He was entirely right.
This post actually made my day. You can not imagine just how much time I had spent for this information! Thanks!
These are truly wonderful ideas in concerning blogging.
You have touched some good points here. Any way keep up
wrinting.
An impressive share! I have just forwarded this onto a colleague
who was doing a little research on this. And he
actually bought me lunch because I stumbled upon it for him…
lol. So let me reword this…. Thank YOU for the meal!!
But yeah, thanx for spending some time to talk about
this subject here on your web page.
Valuable info. Lucky me I found your website by accident, and I am
surprised why this accident didn’t came about in advance!
I bookmarked it.
Your method of telling all in this paragraph is actually good, all be able to without difficulty understand it, Thanks a lot.
Hi to all, it’s actually a good for me to go to see
this web site, it contains precious Information.
This is really interesting, You are a very skilled blogger.
I’ve joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your wonderful post.
Also, I have shared your site in my social networks!
We are a bunch of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community.
Your site provided us with valuable information to work
on. You’ve done a formidable job and our entire group shall be grateful to
you.
I loved as much as you will receive carried out right here.
The sketch is attractive, your authored subject matter stylish.
nonetheless, you command get bought an impatience over that you wish be delivering the
following. unwell unquestionably come more formerly again as exactly the same nearly very often inside case you shield this
hike.
I have read so many articles regarding the blogger lovers except this paragraph is genuinely a nice paragraph,
keep it up.
Thanks for another informative website. Where else may I
get that type of information written in such a perfect manner?
I have a project that I am simply now running on, and I’ve been at the look out for such information.
Thanks , I have just been looking for information about this subject for a long time and yours
is the best I have discovered so far. But, what in regards
to the conclusion? Are you positive concerning the source?
Hi, Neat post. There is a problem with your web site in web explorer, might check this?
IE nonetheless is the market chief and a large element of other people will leave out your excellent writing due to this problem.
Hey very interesting blog!
Good day! Do you know if they make any plugins
to protect against hackers? I’m kinda paranoid about losing everything I’ve worked hard on.
Any suggestions?
I’m truly enjoying the design and layout of your blog.
It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more pleasant for me to come here and visit
more often. Did you hire out a developer to create your
theme? Exceptional work!
I was able to find good information from your blog articles.
Post writing is also a fun, if you be familiar with afterward you can write if
not it is difficult to write.
Wow, incredible blog layout! How lengthy have you ever been blogging
for? you make blogging glance easy. The full look of your website is wonderful,
as well as the content!
I know this if off topic but I’m looking into starting my own weblog and was curious what all is needed
to get set up? I’m assuming having a blog like yours would cost a pretty penny?
I’m not very web smart so I’m not 100% certain. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Appreciate it
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this,
like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with
some pics to drive the message home a bit, but other than that, this is
great blog. A fantastic read. I’ll definitely be back.
Usually I do not learn article on blogs, but I would like to say
that this write-up very pressured me to check
out and do it! Your writing style has been amazed me.
Thank you, very nice post.
There’s certainly a lot to find out about this subject.
I really like all of the points you have made.