Meta Can’t Dodge Banned Words Controversy on Threads Forever

14.09.2023 - 15:47 / tech.hindustantimes.com / Meta

Ten weeks into its existence, Meta Platforms Inc.'s Threads is trying desperately to avoid a fight about what content it allows on its site. After Meta finally added the ability to search for keywords, users looking for posts on several significant topics — such as “Covid” — were surprised to turn up no results. Posts with that word existed, of course, but Meta is making them much harder to find (instead pointing users to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website). To prevent the risk of users finding something potentially dangerous or incorrect on Threads, its competitor to the platform formerly known as Twitter, Meta has decided it is better for them to see nothing at all.

Meta has acknowledged the blocking on Threads but declined to share its list of banned words. In addition to “coronavirus,” “vaccine” and “long Covid,” the Washington Post discovered “sex,” “nude,” “gore” and “porn” were restricted.

It's a flawed solution to the intractable problem of having to handle platform safety and manage politically charged content in the current climate. Contradictory court decisions and ever-persistent accusations of bias and inaction have made such caution inevitable. Just more than a year out from a presidential election, we're arguably as far as we've ever been from answering the question of who gets to decide what is allowed on social media. So it's no surprise that having previously bent over backward to put in place policies to please (or maybe appease) everyone, Meta's latest approach is to attempt to duck the conversation as best it can.

Consider the ruling issued by the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals late Friday. Three Republican judges upheld an earlier court's view that the White House, government health officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation all likely violated the First Amendment through their badgering of social media companies to remove posts about Covid-19 and the 2020 election, effectively “commandeering their decision-making processes.”

Media reports described the ruling as plainly a “victory for conservatives,” which struck me as odd: I agreed with it, and I'm no conservative. Aggressive messages to Meta's staff from the White House strategy director at the time, Rob Flaherty— such as “I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today” — surely crossed a line, infringing on the right for Meta to run its business how it sees fit.

But cutting off contact entirely would be irresponsible. Thus, the more sensible 5th Circuit ruling, much narrower in scope than the lower court's order, made it legal again for the White House and other agencies to engage with networks on content moderation matters as long as requests didn't contain “significant encouragement” to