Instagram Moderators Say Iran Offered Them Bribes to Remove Accounts (bbc.com) 18
The BBC reports:
A Persian-language content moderator for Instagram and a former content moderator have said Iranian intelligence officials offered them money to remove Instagram accounts of journalists and activists....
Both content moderators also accused some Iranian colleagues of exhibiting "pro-regime bias" when reviewing posts on the photo-sharing service. They spoke to the BBC after many Iranian Instagram users complained that posts about recent anti-government protests in their country had been deleted. Instagram's owner, Meta Platforms, and the third-party company it uses to moderate content said there was no validity to the claims....
The protests received very little coverage on Iranian state media, meaning that Iranians had to rely on Instagram and other social media sites to learn what was happening on the ground. As the unrest continued, users noticed that some videos posted on Instagram were being removed....
The former content moderator told the BBC that he "personally knew some reviewers who supported the Iranian regime and received instructions from Iran"....
All three interviewees said it was likely that some videos of the protests were removed because they included people shouting: "Death to Khamenei".
Meta has previously said that its guidelines around incitement of violence prohibit calls for the death of a head of state. However, in Iran the phrase "Death to..." is commonly chanted at protests to express discontent with something or someone, rather than to express an actual threat.
Both content moderators also accused some Iranian colleagues of exhibiting "pro-regime bias" when reviewing posts on the photo-sharing service. They spoke to the BBC after many Iranian Instagram users complained that posts about recent anti-government protests in their country had been deleted. Instagram's owner, Meta Platforms, and the third-party company it uses to moderate content said there was no validity to the claims....
The protests received very little coverage on Iranian state media, meaning that Iranians had to rely on Instagram and other social media sites to learn what was happening on the ground. As the unrest continued, users noticed that some videos posted on Instagram were being removed....
The former content moderator told the BBC that he "personally knew some reviewers who supported the Iranian regime and received instructions from Iran"....
All three interviewees said it was likely that some videos of the protests were removed because they included people shouting: "Death to Khamenei".
Meta has previously said that its guidelines around incitement of violence prohibit calls for the death of a head of state. However, in Iran the phrase "Death to..." is commonly chanted at protests to express discontent with something or someone, rather than to express an actual threat.
Algorithms & Moderators: (Score:1)
Re:Algorithms & Moderators: (Score:4, Insightful)
Nothing "we" haven't already known for decades and "we" have chosen to ignore.
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Be Intelligent (Score:5, Funny)
Grab the money and block the Iranian intelligence officials accounts.
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You mean that "pro-US Foreign Policy narrative coverage" from BBC? From what I read in the article, they don't mention anyone else bribing Instagram in the article the BBC wrote, specifically about an instance of Iran bribing Instagram, not a general article on the topic.
Guess who the problem is? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you think that a UK news service reporting that a employees of US-based multinational are doing the bidding of the Iran government is a "pro-US propaganda", you are the problem.
A UK news source pointing out the Iran government is bribing employees of Meta is not pro-US.
If anything, it's pointing out problems at both thrbIran government and the US-based company. Aka anti-US companies, if you have a need to drag the US into every single conversation because of some fetish you have.
Re: Guess who the problem is? (Score:3)
Aka anti-US companies, if you have a need to drag the US into every single conversation because of some fetish you have.
That's pretty typical for Europeans.
Re: Just Iran... (Score:4, Funny)
This isn't the first time meta has had moderation issues, and the answer is always "we don't care"
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Zuck is the type of person that doesn't care if his pants are down
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Yeah, they should be giving money to the lobbyists in Washington
Zuckerberg can't stop screwing up (Score:3)
"Instagram's owner, Meta Platforms, and the third-party company it uses to moderate content said there was no validity to the claims" Sweeping thing like this under the rug is a short-term win. But if this actually happened (and in the past things like this have happened with meta), picture for the cesspool of a company that meta already is. A good leader would say "we're looking into the issue maybe we have things to change"
Re: (Score:2)
And if it's ever shown that the claims are irrefutable, they fire Telus International, then rehire them 2 weeks after the Canadian Company throws a couple employees under the bus.