For years, human rights monitors have been outraged at the selective policing of content on Meta’s social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The company’s latest enforcement action is hardly shocking at this point, but it provides a crystal clear example of the kinds of things Meta will — and won’t — allow on its apps.
In a bizarre case of digital censorship, Meta’s content moderation system stepped in to stop a local theatre in Barcelona from promoting a stage adaptation on the grounds that it violated a rule on promoting “social topics,” per the Guardian.
The production in question is an adaptation of “A Room of One’s Own,” a book by the legendary English author and feminist Virginia Woolf. According to the Teatre Raval, planned promotional posts about the show were blocked on both Instagram and Facebook, likely by an automated content moderation system.
After reaching out to Meta about why the promo campaign had been stomped out, the company replied that “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system,” and therefore rejected.
According to the Guardian, the company then cryptically recommended the Raval remove “key words” related to social activism, so the promo campaign can pass the automated censor — though the company failed to explain what, exactly, its content system objected to.
“We don’t know if the publicity has been rejected because of the name of Virginia Woolf or because of the word feminism, or both,” Clara Sanchis, who stars in the one-woman show told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, per the Guardian, which translated the comments.
“In any case, it’s a way of erasing from the map advances that have taken centuries to achieve,” Sanchis continued. “We have given social media unlimited power and every day we can see how dangerous this is. It’s bias and manipulation.”
The automated rejection and the ensuing apathy from Meta come after some galling incidents where Meta refused to take down content significantly more radical than a theatrical performance about a literary figure whose books are read by high schoolers.
In August, Futurism reported that Meta was refusing to take meaningful action against a far-right influencer campaign to drum up support for a “crusader march on Dearborn” Michigan, organized by self-described “anti-Arab” extremist Jake Lang.
Though Lang’s initial post wasn’t “sponsored,” meaning he didn’t officially pay to promote his call-to-action as the Teatre Raval was trying to do, his post nonetheless garnered thousands of reactions, comments, and shares from his 274,000 followers. It also spawned a deluge of copycat posts extolling racism and Islamophobia, some of which contained explicit calls for violence which Meta refused to take down.
And earlier in September, Meta was found to be hosting a massive number of AI-generated videos depicting horrific acts of child abuse. Meta removed a tiny handful of videos after Futurism approached the company for comment — but refused to act on others, leaving the vast majority of violent AI Reels untouched.
In all, Meta has drawn a revolting line in the sand — with nominally progressive “social topics” on the verboten side, and base depictions of torture and calls for violence allowed sight unseen.
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