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Meta is failing to catch memes and innuendo promoting Holocaust denial, oversight panel concludes

(JTA) – An Instagram post using a SpongeBob SquarePants meme to promote Holocaust denial managed to evade Meta’s system for removing such content, raising questions about the company’s ability to combat certain indirect forms of hate speech, an independent oversight panel concluded in a case published Tuesday.

The finding came in a review of Meta’s handling of a post featuring a meme of Squidward, a character from the cartoon series SpongeBob SquarePants, entitled “Fun Facts about the Holocaust.” A speech bubble next to the character contained lies and distortions about the Holocaust, including false claims that 6 million Jews could not have been murdered and that chimneys of the crematoria at Auschwitz were built only after World War II.

Withstanding six complaints from users that generated four automated reviews and two human assessments, the post stayed up from September 2020 until last year when Meta’s Oversight Board decided it would examine the situation and the company subsequently announced the post violated its policy against hate speech. The post even survived two user complaints that came after Meta’s adoption in October 2020 of a new rule expanding on its hate speech policy to explicitly bar Holocaust denial.

As part of its review in the SpongeBob case, the Oversight Board commissioned a team of researchers to search for Holocaust denial on Meta’s platforms. It was not hard to find examples, including posts using the same Squidward meme to promote other types of antisemitic narratives. Users try to evade Meta’s detection and removal system, the researchers found. Vowels are replaced with symbols, for example, and cartoons and memes offer a way to implicitly deny the history of the Holocaust without directly saying it didn’t happen.

Content moderation on social media is a notoriously difficult task. Some platforms, such as X, formerly known as Twitter, have taken a more hands-off approach, preferring to reduce oversight rather than err and risk stifling legitimate speech, which has resulted for X in the proliferation of antisemitism and extremism.

Meta has gone in the direction of increased moderation, even agreeing to empower the Oversight Board to make binding decisions in disputes over violations of the platform’s content policies. Meta’s vigilance has led in some cases to the accidental removal of content intended to criticize hate speech or educate the public about the Holocaust. The Oversight Board has repeatedly urged Meta to refine its algorithms and processes to reduce the chance of mistakes and improve transparency when it comes to enforcing the ban on Holocaust denial.

Meta set up its oversight panel amid mounting controversy over how the company handles content moderation. The move opened Meta to new scrutiny but did not stop the criticism. When, for example, the panel announced the SpongeBob case and requested comment from the public, it received a flurry of critical responses from Jewish groups and others.

“Holocaust denial and distortion on Meta platforms, on any forum, online or offline, is unequivocally hate speech,” the Anti-Defamation League wrote in its comment. “The Oversight Board must direct Meta to act accordingly by quickly removing violating posts like the one at issue in this case. Waiting for appeals to rise to the Oversight Board is unacceptable.”

Meanwhile, another commenter named the ADL as a negative influence on Meta’s content moderation practices, referring to the group as a “non-representative, Democratic-Leftist organization.”

“Meta has lost all integrity in this area given Metas serious level of hyper-partisan Orwellian-level censorship,” wrote the commenter, who identified themselves as Brett Prince.

In the SpongeBob case, the oversight panel made two new sets of recommendations for Meta. It said that assessing how well Meta is enforcing its ban on Holocaust denial is difficult because human moderators do not record the specific reason they removed a piece of content, a practice the panel urged Meta to change.

The panel also learned that as of May 2023, Meta was still sorting reviews based on an automation policy enacted following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic so that users’ appeals of decisions by users were rejected unless deemed “high-risk.” It is inappropriate to have kept the policy in place for so long, the panel said.

The spread of hate and misinformation on social media has become an acute problem in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, as platforms become flooded with depictions of graphic violence and war-related propaganda. In response to the circumstances, the Oversight Board adopted an expedited process for reviewing disputed cases.


The post Meta is failing to catch memes and innuendo promoting Holocaust denial, oversight panel concludes appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Lebanon Must Disarm Hezbollah to Have a Shot at Better Days, Says US Envoy

Thomas Barrack at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

i24 News – Lebanon’s daunting social, economic and political issues would not get resolved unless the state persists in the efforts to disarm Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy behind so much of the unrest and destruction, special US envoy Tom Barrack told The National.

“You have Israel on one side, you have Iran on the other, and now you have Syria manifesting itself so quickly that if Lebanon doesn’t move, it’s going to be Bilad Al Sham again,” he said, using the historical Arabic name for the region sometimes known as “larger Syria.”

The official stressed the need to follow through on promises to disarm the Iranian proxy, which suffered severe blows from Israel in the past year, including the elimination of its entire leadership, and is considered a weakened though still dangerous jihadist outfit.

“There are issues that we have to arm wrestle with each other over to come to a final conclusion. Remember, we have an agreement, it was a great agreement. The problem is, nobody followed it,” he told The National.

Barrack spoke on the heels of a trip to Beirut, where he proposed a diplomatic plan for the region involving the full disarmament of Hezbollah by the Lebanese state.

The post Lebanon Must Disarm Hezbollah to Have a Shot at Better Days, Says US Envoy first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Putin Urges Iran to Accept ‘Zero Enrichment’ Nuclear Deal With US

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a cultural forum dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Scherbak/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iranian leadership that he supports the idea of a nuclear deal in which Iran is unable to enrich uranium, the Axios website reported on Saturday. The Russian strongman also relayed the message to his American counterpart, President Donald Trump, the report said.

Iranian news agency Tasnim issued a denial, citing an “informed source” as saying Putin had not sent any message to Iran in this regard.

Also on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that “Any negotiated solution must respect Iran’s right to enrichment. No agreement without recognizing our right to enrichment. If negotiations occur, the only topic will be the nuclear program. No other issues, especially defense or military matters, will be on the agenda.”

The post Report: Putin Urges Iran to Accept ‘Zero Enrichment’ Nuclear Deal With US first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Syria’s Al-Sharaa Attending At Least One Meeting With Israeli Officials in Azerbaijan

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool

i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is attending at least one meeting with Israeli officials in Azerbaijan today, despite sources in Damascus claiming he wasn’t attending, a Syrian source close to President Al-Sharaa tells i24NEWS.

The Syrian source stated that this is a series of two or three meetings between the sides, with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also in attendance, along with Ahmed Al-Dalati, the Syrian government’s liaison for security meetings with Israel.

The high-level Israeli delegation includes a special envoy of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, as well as security and military figures.

The purpose of the meetings is to discuss further details of the security agreement to be signed between Israel and Syria, the Iranian threat in Syria and Lebanon, Hezbollah’s weapons, the weapons of Palestinian militias, the Palestinians camps in Lebanon, and the future of Palestinian refugees from Gaza in the region.

The possibility of opening an Israeli coordination office in Damascus, without diplomatic status, might also be discussed.

The source stated that the decision to hold the meetings in Azerbaijan, made by Israel and the US, is intended to send a message to Iran.

The post Syria’s Al-Sharaa Attending At Least One Meeting With Israeli Officials in Azerbaijan first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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