{"id":12004,"date":"2019-04-25T01:46:21","date_gmt":"2019-04-25T05:46:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/?p=12004"},"modified":"2022-11-11T19:40:56","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T22:40:56","slug":"facebook-censorship-of-the-workers-party-in-paraguay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/facebook-censorship-of-the-workers-party-in-paraguay\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook censorship of the Workers Party in Paraguay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The\nWorkers’ Party (PT for it\u2019s spanish acronym) of Paraguay – a\nnon-hegemonic party with few resources – was subject of censorship by\nthe Facebook social network, forcing the party to take measures to\navoid loosing its right of free expression in the Internet.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ncase<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Last September, the Workers Party (PT) published an article addressing the imprisonment of Oscar Gonz\u00e1lez Daher- former senator and president of the Magistrates Trial Jury (JEM) – an unprecedented case in the country regarding seizure of an elected authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The article<\/a> was published on the PT’s official website http:\/\/ptparaguay.litci.org\/ and distributed on social media. Facebook is currently the most popular social network of the party, with more than 8,000 followers and a very active account that makes visible all the work of the organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\nand to the great surprise of those involved, shortly after the note\nwas published, both the article and the domain (address of the\nwebsite) were classified as spam by the Facebook. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nabove implies numerous problems: Once Facebook classifies a webpage\nas spam, it automatically stops being shareable in the social\nnetwork, making it impossible to distribute any information contained\nin it and by any user of the network, both PT social media account\nand also third parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One step back: Facebook community rules and spam<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Pulgares de Facebook: Imagen extra\u00edda de EFF (eff.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Invoking principles such as security, equity and voice, Facebook makes available to different users its “Community Standards<\/a>“, a set of -valga redundancia- community rules that describe what is allowed and what is not allowed on Facebook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Section\n(IV) Integrity and authenticity, in its subsection 16 addresses spam\nand states that Facebook:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strive\nto limit the spread of commercial spam in order to avoid false\nadvertising, fraud and security breaches, which prevent people from\nsharing and connecting. We do not allow people to use misleading or\ninaccurate information to increase the number of likes, followers or\ntimes the content is shared.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIt is\nimportant to recognize the efforts of Facebook to make transparent\nit\u2019s content moderation processes. When establishing general\ncommunity standards, it establishes game rules that must be known and\nrespected in advanced. However, each case in particular must be\nstudied, to avoid discretionality and not end up censoring certain\nspeeches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nTransferring\nthe application of community standards to the specific case of the\nWorkers’ Party, it is worth analyzing a series of points related to\nthe problem they faced, as well as the specific responsibility of\nFacebook when censoring a left political party (It is not being\nevaluated if there was a direct or indirect action by the platform):<\/p>\n\n\n\n