Meta Board Reverses Pakistan Child Abuse Documentary

The Oversight Board, an external advisory group of Meta, has reversed the social media company’s decision to remove a news documentary that exposed the identities of child victims of sexual abuse and murder in Pakistan

This is an unusual circumstance given the documentary’s newsworthiness. The eleven-minute documentary, which was published on the Facebook page of Voice of America (VOA) Urdu in January 2022, garnered 67 user reports until July 2023 due to its distressing content concerning the atrocities committed by Javed Iqbal in Pakistan during the 1990s.

Iqbal is believed to have murdered and sexually assaulted around one hundred children. It comprised newspaper clip images depicting the names of child victims alongside their faces, as well as individuals in tears.

At first, Meta did not identify it as a transgression subsequent to both automated and human evaluations. However, the post was subsequently removed by Meta’s policy team for violating the Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Nudity policy after it was escalated internally and flagged separately by the company’s High Risk Early Review Operations system due to its high likelihood of going viral. Prior to its removal, the post had been viewed approximately 21.8 million times and shared around 18,000 times.

Meta referred the case to the Oversight Board, which, despite the violation of the Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Nudity Community Standard, reached the consensus that the content should remain permitted on the platform.

“The potential harms to the families and victims of these child abuse crimes were not considered significant by the majority,” the Oversight Board wrote in a blog post on Tuesday, providing an explanation for its extraordinary decision.

It was stated that the documentary’s purpose was to bring attention to the horrific details of the crimes that occurred approximately 25 years ago, in which none of the victims survived, and not to sensationalize them.

“The passage of time is the most crucial factor because it signifies that the likelihood of direct harm to the child victims has decreased.” “In the interim, public concern regarding child abuse persists,” the board stated.

The board has noted that Meta made the decision to remove the content from the platform more than eighteen months after it had been accessible. Furthermore, it raises concerns regarding the adequacy of Meta’s video resources in the Urdu language.

A minority of the Board recommended that the content be made unavailable, as it was possible to discuss the concerns expressed in the video without disclosing the identities and faces of the victims, whereas the majority of the Board supported overturning the takedown decision.

The Oversight Board suggests that Meta include a subsection in each community standard that specifies the relevant exceptions and allowances. The Board advised that when the new provision is implemented, the company should provide an explanation for why it denies certain exceptions that apply to other policies (such as news reporting or awareness raising).

“Although the infrequently utilized newsworthiness allowance—a general exception that can only be applied by Meta’s expert teams—was pertinent in this instance, the Board notes that the Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse, and Nudity policy has no specific policy exceptions, such as reporting or raising awareness. “Meta should provide users with greater clarity regarding this,” the board observed.

“Moreover, the public discourse surrounding this policy could benefit from greater clarity regarding the criteria for identifying purported victims “by name or image.”

Meta has recognized its error in eliminating the content on account of the significant damage it caused to the victims and their families, despite the fact that the incidents occurred more than two decades ago. Furthermore, it expressed its approval of the decision made by the Oversight Board and resolved to restore the content within a span of seven days.

The board, which commenced its deliberations in 2020 subsequent to the conception of its establishment by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in 2018, has rendered significant decisions in oversight cases, one of which condemned Facebook for “indefinitely banning” former President Donald Trump. It requested Meta to reform its “incoherent” regulations regarding transformed videos in February of this year.