Facebook has rightly removed a 17-second video with Black Petes in it. That is the opinion of the Oversight Board, a supervisory board initiated by Facebook that can judge difficult moderation issues. Both parties emphasize that the board operates independently of the tech giant.
The verdict concerns a video that was shared by a Dutch user of Facebook on December 5. It shows a young child who meets Sinterklaas and two Zwarte Pieten.
‘Damaging racial stereotype’
In an explanation, the council says that “although Zwarte Piet represents a cultural tradition that is shared by many Dutch people without a clear racist goal, the use of blackface widely seen as a damaging racial stereotype ”.
Since August last year, sharing stereotype versions of Zwarte Piet on Facebook and Instagram is no longer allowed. For this reason, the council believes that Facebook has made it “sufficiently clear” that content containing blackface will be removed unless it is intended to condemn it or draw attention to the negative consequences of the phenomenon.
The majority of the council saw “sufficient evidence” of damage to warrant removal of the content. The content of the video is believed to contain caricatures that are inseparable from negative and racist stereotypes and seen by parts of Dutch society as supportive of systematic racism.
The part that was against the decision states that there is not enough evidence to remove the video. This group says Facebook’s premise of giving people a voice specifically protects content that others disagree with. Blackface may be insulting, this section says, but it doesn’t always do damage.
Earlier this year, Instagram was sent two videos from the NOS in which a black pete was seen under the same rules, deleted. Prior to this, the main action had objected to this, but the platform did not respond to this at the time.
Case President Trump
It is the seventh case on which the Supervisory Board has ruled since the start last autumn. It is the second case in which Facebook has been proved right. Currently, the council is also looking into whether the social network has rightly removed former president Trump from the platform over his statements surrounding the Capitol storm. The rulings of the council are binding. The body may also give policy advice; Facebook is not obliged to follow this up.
The council has coincided with the decision on the black pete video also announced From now on, accept requests from users who believe that Facebook has left messages unjustified. The body has so far only spoken out about content that had been removed by Facebook or Instagram. This step increases the mandate of the board; there was a lot of criticism beforehand that this was initially lacking.
The Oversight Board was conceived by Facebook from the philosophy that the company does not want to bear final responsibility for moderation choices. The board is of the opinion that the government should do this through regulation. Failing that, the social network has set up its own ‘supreme court’ and funded it through a foundation.
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