San Francisco: The moderators at Facebook who carry out the critical task of removing dangerous content from its platform rely on material based on incorrect interpretation of certain Indian laws, The New York Times has reported. The documents that are used to guide Facebook’s over 7,500 moderators span more than 1,400 pages which often contain inaccuracies and outdated information, said the report on Thursday. One of the documents tells moderators that any post degrading an entire religion violates Indian law and should be flagged for removal.
But the law prohibits such posts only in certain conditions, such as when the intention of the users is to inflame violence, Chinmayi Arun, a legal scholar, said. Another document for moderators instructs them to “look out for” the phrase “Free Kashmir”—though the slogan, common among activists, is completely legal, the report said. The moderators are even warned that ignoring posts that use the phrase could get Facebook blocked in India..
As per data compiled by Statista, India has the highest number of Facebook users — 294 million (as of October 2018) — 90 million more than the number of FB users in the US which has the second-biggest users-base for the social network. As FB faces criticism for allowing extremist content in some countries, and censoring legit posts in other places, the job of moderators who need to monitor billions of posts daily in 100 languages is critical. The moderators, relying on Google Translate, have mere seconds to recall countless rules.Agencies
