The supervisory board of Meta wants to authorize the slogan “ Death to Khamenei ».
The supervisory body sees it more as a cry of protest than a death threat.
The Supervisory Board wants to take into account the context
Is this a landmark decision in the Meta universe? The group’s supervisory board has just invalidated the deletion of a Facebook post using the slogan ” Death to Khamenei », supreme leader and highest political authority of Iran.
For this independent body, which oversees the moderation of the firm’s social networks, this slogan would reflect more opposition to the power in place than a real death threat. ” In the context of the post and the broader social, political and linguistic situation in Iran, “marg bar Khamenei” should be understood as “down”. It’s a rhetorical and political slogan, not a credible threat “explains the council.
He thus authorizes the use of this slogan, and also asks Meta to improve the consideration of the context in its moderation policy. He also wants the social network to clearly define when this kind of rhetorical threat against a head of state is admissible.
The difficult balance to maintain for Meta
This decision comes as Iran has been shaken for several months now by demonstrations of an unprecedented scale, following the death of the young Mahsa Amini three days after her arrest by the morality police last September.
Social networks have several times already had to arbitrate between the regulation of calls to violence and the free expression of political opposition. Meta is particularly struggling on this issue, since Mark Zuckerberg’s group has a policy of banning comments inciting serious violence, while seeking to limit this category to credible threats.
Thus, at the start of the war in Ukraine, Meta had introduced an exception in its rules for death threats against Vladimir Putin, before backtracking a few days later.
Source : Reuters
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