Menlo Park: Meta has said that it would lift its blanket ban on the word shaheed after a year-long review by its oversight board found the social media giant’s approach was “overboard”.
The firm has been strongly criticized for years over its handling of content involving the Middle East, including in a 2021 study Meta itself commissioned that found its approach had an adverse human rights impact on Palestinians social media users of its services. Those criticisms have intensified since the onset of hostilities between Hamas and Israel in October.
The oversight board, which is sponsored by Meta but operates independently, initiated its review last year because the word accounted for more content removals on the firm’s platforms than any other single word. Meta is the parent company of Instagram and Facebook.
