In addition to the mafia and terrorist groups, the lists contain several political organizations considered as appealing to hatred, including several French far-right groups.
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The American website The Intercept has published, Tuesday, October 12, A list of “individuals and dangerous organizations” used by Facebook moderators. The document, which is not dated, brings together on a hundred pages a little more than 4,000 organizations and personalities, divided into several categories that determine whether these groups and their apology are tolerated or prohibited on the platform. We discern three main.
The first brings together terrorist, criminals or racist groups considered particularly violent or dangerous. These are not only forbidden for presence on Facebook, but any message considered to be their apology or advertising must also be deleted, according to the rules transmitted to the moderation teams consulted by The Intercept.
The list used by Facebook is largely based on the classifications of the US government, which maintains its own list of organizations considered terrorists. Unsurprisingly, there is a multitude of small groupcules affiliated with the Islamic State Organization, Al Qaeda, or Hezbollah. It can also read the names of a handful of neonazis groups, as well as some European clandestine organizations. The list mentions several orangist paramilitary groups of Ireland and groupuscules such as true IRA, as well as fails related to ETA. Added into all this a list of criminal groups considered particularly violent, mainly composed of Mafias from Latin America – Brazil and Mexico in the lead.
The moderation rules are, on the other hand, a little more flexible for a list of “violent non-state actors”, which constitute the second category defined by Facebook. The latter brings together paramilitary organizations leading guerrillas, including several Syrian or Chechen groups. The moderators are encouraged to tolerate messages that evoke these groups for their non-violent actions, but to remove any glorification of armed actions.
Calls to hatred
The third main category brings together groups and individuals who are not directly suspected of violent actions, but whose speech encourages violence or hatred. Facebook users are in their case authorized to discuss it broadly, but their messages are reported to the moderators as having a particular risk. Several French groups are in this list, including the group-generation, dissolved in March, whose Facebook page had been closed in 2018, or the Equality and Reconciliation movement, of Alain Soral, convicted of multiple occasions, including the Facebook page was closed in 2017; There are also neonazis or related music groups, including the French group Elsass Korps, dissolved in 2005.
The main revelation of these documents is probably the existence, within these lists of a category “armed social movements”. Very detailed, the latter comprises several hundred armed groups, all Americans. Some are linked to the American far right, others at the Pro-Weapon Boogaloo Movement; The Intercept sees in this specific classification the proof that Facebook practices a moderation “Americancentrée” and more tolerant for the American far right than for other groups.
A strongly challenged accusation by the social network, which says ranking according to the degree of dangerous groups and their behaviors. “When American groups respond to our definition of what a terrorist group, we designate them as such (this is, for example, the case for The Base, Atomwaffen Division or National Socialist Order [three American Neonazis groups]))) Explains a spokesperson for the company in The Intercept. When they respond rather to our criteria designating the organizations that call for hatred, we then classify them in this way, for example the proud boys, the movement rise aboot Movement, or the Patriot Front. “