11-16, 11:30–12:30 (Asia/Beirut), The in Between
Find overlaps between themes and topics that are a common problem across the region such as problems with Meta's Dangerous Individuals and Organisations or problems of Arabic/Persian/non-European language harassment on Twitter. These similarities will help learn best practices and strategies to deal with the companies and the issues.
Increasingly, Instagram has become the most popular social media in Iran. It's the last remaining unblocked foreign social media.
But there's massive issues with content takedowns and policies. The type of content we have seen removed include hashtags for human rights campaigns becoming shadow banned; comedians posting satire making fun of Iranian officials on Meta's Dangerous Individuals and Organisations list (DIO) like the Revolutionary Guards list or poking fun at COVID misinfo peddled by the clerical elite; activist organisations posting protest footage that include chants of "death to the dictator/death to Khamenei" removed for inciting violence; or Persian language news organisations simply discussing political organisations or issues inside of Iran that intersect with the DIO list.
Instagram suffers from a deficit in trust, transparency, and policies that are either not contextualised to Iran or cannot be implemented properly at scale in the Persian language. Despite acknowledgements by the company, the case loads remain high, and many Iranians are abandoning the platform or digging deep into conspiracy theories. Revelations by the BBC that IRI officials have tried to bribe Persian language moderators for Meta at a centre in Essen alongside allegations that there is not enough oversight over the moderators to neutralise their biases has further fuelled distrust over the platform.
While a lot of the Iranian community and activists find these issues to be unique to their community or their political contexts, these issues are present amongst different communities and contexts across the region. We hope to bring together other activists to walk through best practises when working with the platforms and strengthening solidarity and work together.
Senior researcher with ARTICLE19 on issues of digital rights in MENA, specialising in Iran. Finishing DPhil at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.