"During this period our content review teams operated at limited capacity and were unable to respond as quickly to trusted partner channel reports as we would like and as they have done in the past," the company said. In those comments, Meta acknowledged that COVID-19 had "severely impacted" its operations, which "resulted in poor reporting experiences" for its trusted partners from 2019 to 2021. It did, however, provide three pages of answers to Internews' questions, which were included in the draft report. Meta did not respond to a request for comment on either the death of al-Hashimi or Internews' report. Internews is also one of Meta's largest partners and receives funding from Meta for various projects. The trusted-partner program gained steam in the late 2010s after Meta drew criticism for its role in proliferating genocide in Myanmar, and the firm now considers the program essential to its moderation strategy in politically fraught countries, such as Iraq.Ī draft report by the media nonprofit Internews, obtained by Insider through a trusted partner, has concluded that the lapses in Meta's trusted-partner program are putting people at grave risk. In many countries, Meta relies on reporting from local civil-society groups and experts to flag hate speech and misinformation on Facebook. Facebook and its parent company, Meta, have faced fierce criticism for failing to adequately moderate the platform. A draft report indicates problems within Meta's trusted-partner network are all too commonĪl-Saadi isn't alone. "One of the reasons for his killing was Meta," al-Saadi told Insider. On July 6, 2020, the day of al-Hashimi's death, al-Saadi wrote back: "They killed him now." Al-Saadi flagged it, but Meta replied that the post did not violate the company's policies. One post from April 2020, which wrongly claimed al-Hashimi was an al-Qaida leader, was never taken down. Some posts were removed within a day, while others stayed up for as long as a week. Hisham al-Hashimi reached out to his friend Aws al-Saadi, a Meta Trusted Partner, to ask him to take down posts endangering his life.Īl-Saadi did what he could, but the responses from Meta were inconsistent. In September 2019, al-Hashimi reached out to al-Saadi to ask whether he could help remove the harmful posts targeting him on Facebook. At the time, Iraq was going through the largest civil uprising in the country since the US invasion in 2003.Īl-Hashimi knew that one of his closest friends, Aws al-Saadi, the founder of the nonprofit Tech4Peace, was a Meta "trusted partner" and had a direct line to the company to help remove content like the threats against his life. In the months leading up to his death, viral posts on Facebook and other social-media sites accused al-Hashimi of being a spy for US, Israeli, or British forces, as well as conspiring to further destabilize Iraq. Often an outspoken critic of the country's militia groups, al-Hashimi was deeply connected within Iraq's various power factions, from ISIS to government and opposition politicians. By the time he reached the hospital, al-Hashimi was dead. On July 6, 2020, as the prominent Iraqi historian Hisham al-Hashimi was walking toward his vehicle outside his home in eastern Baghdad, a group of gunmen sped toward him on motorcycles and fired five times at point-blank range. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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