"Meta has system for evaluating the effectiveness of its own moderation for Arabic language content but not Hebrew", 15 Augest 2024.

... Meta’s policies governing hate speech as it pertains to Palestine are inequitable, an assessment echoed by Palestinian advocates...

... some workers on the frontlines of the ongoing information battle surrounding the conflict feel wary of raising concerns for fear of retaliation, allegations echoed in a recent letter signed by more than 200 Meta workers...

... Disparity in content moderation by language is a longstanding criticism of Meta...

..."When Palestinian voices are silenced on Meta platforms, it has a very direct consequence on Palestinian lives,” said Cat Knarr of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights...

... The policies require the removal of the statements “boycott Jewish shops” and “boycott Muslim shops” but allow the phrase “boycott Arab stores,” according to internal documents...

…Meta says that it has “multiple systems in place” to measure enforcement accuracy for Hebrew-language content moderation, including evaluation by Hebrew-speaking reviewers and auditors…

However, the documents show there is no “policy precision” measure for Hebrew-language enforcement…

The difference implies “a bias on how they are enforcing content”, potentially leading to over-enforcement of Arabic-language content, they added…

The disparity was partially attributed to the fact that Meta, at the time, had put in place an Arabic “hostile speech classifier”, allowing the automatic detection of violating content – like hate speech and calls for violence – but had not done the same for Hebrew language content…

…In addition to hostile speech classifiers and other indicators, Meta uses collections of images, phrases and videos that allow its machine learning tools to automatically flag and remove posts that violate its policies….

“If I raised this directly, I feel my job would be on the line – it is very obvious where the company stands on this issue,” the worker said…

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