Facebook to update guidelines; privacy experts say, move could have adverse impact on free speech

NEW DELHI: Facebook announced on Tuesday that from October 1, the social media platform will update it's terms of services and would start removing or restricting content that can cause the company "legal and regulatory" harm.
Digital privacy experts said the update could give Facebook a "wide berth" to remove any content that it may feel harms the social media platform, including posts that are critical of Facebook.
"Effective October 1, 2020, section 3.2 of our terms of service will be updated to include: We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Facebook," the company announced in a notification it sent out to users. It also uploaded the updated terms and conditions online.
The move comes at a time when the technology giant faces scrutiny over how it moderates problematic content, including hate speech, and battles allegations of pro-BJP favoritism.
Online privacy experts pointed out that the move could have an adverse impact on free speech on the platform, and might lead to censorship. "(The update) can mean a lot of things. Regulatory impacts to Facebook can mean posts critical of the platform. But perhaps more importantly, this also seems to give Facebook a wide berth to be excessively compliant with government requests to take down content, without any guarantee that it will first check whether the government request is complying with all the procedural requirements," said Torsha Sarkar, a researcher with the Centre for Internet and Society, whose work revolves around content moderation.
Apar Gupta, executive director of digital advocacy group Internet Freedom Foundation, also raised concern over the updated terms of service. "Does this mean users cannot critique Facebook on Facebook? Does sharing one of the WSJ, or Time articles constitute, "adverse legal or regulatory impacts"? Will a campaign such as #SaveTheInternet contravene these terms?" he wrote on Twitter.
Kazim Rizvi, founder of The Dialogue, a think tank that focuses on tech policy, said social media companies should not act as "arbiters of truth and morality for society."
"Protection of constitutionally guaranteed and internationally recognised right to freedom of speech and expression must at all times take precedence when it comes to online spaces on the internet. For social media companies, it is crucial that they develop robust community guidelines with inputs from the community, and publicly share their updated and detailed content monitoring, moderation and take-down protocols," he said.
Sarkar added that the term “reasonably necessary” is "pretty vague" and could give a wide berth of discretion to Facebook to determine what it considers necessary.
"Coupled with the fact that its appeals process is pretty opaque, with not enough clarity on why some posts are taken down versus others continued to remain up, this might have an adverse effect on the freedom of expression/speech of its users, since it may not give them enough resources in case they feel their content is being wrongfully taken down," she added.