Censorship of Iranian protests on Instagram; Three human rights groups call for change in "meta" policy

On Thursday, June 9, three human rights groups called on Meta, the owner of social networks Instagram and Facebook, to review its policies regarding Persian-language content for Iran.

The UK-based freedom of expression group Article 19, along with the digital rights group Access Now and the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, met with a senior Meta official to complain about restrictions imposed on Instagram and Facebook to inform Iranians during the recent protests.

In recent weeks, there have been many reports of Instagram restricting posts related to the Iranian protests, including removing some messages and videos related to the protests.

Currently, the social networks Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are blocked in Iran, and only Instagram is available to the general public.

Three human rights groups met with Meta's head of content policy and said the company should change its policies regarding potentially sensitive content and human and automated monitoring.

They added that Instagram's "trust and transparency" among Persian-speaking users has been reduced and Meta must ensure that "its content moderation practices support and protect human rights and freedom of expression."

Iran has witnessed widespread protests in recent weeks against rising prices and mismanagement under the rule of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Human rights activists are complaining that Meta has removed some of their Instagram posts with documentary coverage of popular protests, which has deprived users of access to key sources for information about events in Iran.

AFP writes that in the absence of coverage of human rights news in the media inside Iran, human rights activists expect social media to be a platform for information dissemination.

Instagram had previously temporarily blocked the hashtag "I will light a candle," which was launched in memory of the victims of the downing of a Ukrainian plane by the Revolutionary Guards.

These three groups defending human rights and freedom of expression have told Meta that some Instagram posts containing the protest slogan "Death to Khamenei" and slogans against other leaders of the Islamic Republic have been deleted.

Meta made some exceptions to the publication of such slogans in July last year, and has recently also allowed the publication of such slogans in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Calling for coordination within Meta, these human rights groups expressed concern that “the lack of this nuance… will lead to problematic removal of newsworthy protest or posts that could directly or indirectly contribute to the confirmation of human rights violations.”

The groups called for "greater transparency" in automated processes, where media banks act to automatically remove content based on specific phrases, images or sounds.

They say concerns have also been raised “about human monitoring processes” following allegations in a BBC Persian report that Iranian officials attempted to bribe Persian-speaking agents at a content monitoring contractor based in Germany.

Meta denied any connection to the Iranian government at the time, saying that moderators review a random set of content to see if rules were violated.

Source: Radio Farda