LONDON: Around 200 Facebook employees signed an open letter last week urging the platform to address mounting criticism that it was censoring Palestinian content and suppressing pro-Palestinian voices.
The letter demanded that Facebook take measures to guarantee the equal treatment of pro-Palestinian content and ensure that such posts are not unfairly taken down or pushed lower in the feed.
It said: “As highlighted by employees, the press and members of Congress, and as reflected in our declining app store rating, our users and community at large feel that we are falling short on our promise to protect open expression around the situation in Palestine.
We believe Facebook can and should do more to understand our users and work on rebuilding their trust.”
During the violence in Gaza and elsewhere in Palestine, an overwhelming number of Palestinian-related posts were censored by social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Activists took to social media to spread awareness on what was happening in Palestine and found that their posts being taken down and their accounts deactivated.
Last Sunday, Facebook was the target of a coordinated social media campaign launched by pro-Palestine activists in an attempt to push down the Facebook app’s ranking on Apple’s App Store and Android’s Google Play.
Launched in response to Facebook’s censorship of content supporting and promoting Palestine-related news, the campaign was successful in bringing down the platform’s rating to 1.9 stars on the App Store.
Meanwhile, after facing mounting accusations of censoring Palestinian content, Instagram announced on Monday that it would be making changes to the way it displays content.
Facebook employees call for change in relation to Palestinian content
https://arab.news/bb5pk
Facebook employees call for change in relation to Palestinian content
- During the violence in Gaza, an overwhelming number of Palestinian-related posts were censored by social media platforms
- Activists who took to social media to spread awareness found that their posts being taken down
Malaysia, Indonesia become first to block Musk’s Grok over AI deepfakes
- Authorities in both countries acted over the weekend, citing concerns about non-consensual and sexual deepfakes
- Regulators say existing controls cannot prevent fake pornographic content, especially involving women and minors
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia and Indonesia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and non-consensual images.
The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children.
Regulators in the two Southeast Asian nations said existing controls were not preventing the creation and spread of fake pornographic content, particularly involving women and minors. Indonesia’s government temporarily blocked access to Grok on Saturday, followed by Malaysia on Sunday.
“The government sees non-consensual sexual deepfakes as a serious violation of human rights, dignity and the safety of citizens in the digital space,” Indonesia’s Communication and Digital Affairs Minister Meutya Hafid said in a statement Saturday.
The ministry said the measure was intended to protect women, children and the broader community from fake pornographic content generated using AI.
Initial findings showed that Grok lacks effective safeguards to stop users from creating and distributing pornographic content based on real photos of Indonesian residents, Alexander Sabar, director general of digital space supervision, said in a separate statement. He said such practices risk violating privacy and image rights when photos are manipulated or shared without consent, causing psychological, social and reputational harm.
In Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission ordered a temporary restriction on Grok on Sunday after what it said was “repeated misuse” of the tool to generate obscene, sexually explicit and non-consensual manipulated images, including content involving women and minors.
The regulator said notices issued this month to X Corp. and xAI demanding stronger safeguards drew responses that relied mainly on user reporting mechanisms.
“The restriction is imposed as a preventive and proportionate measure while legal and regulatory processes are ongoing,” it said, adding that access will remain blocked until effective safeguards are put in place.
Launched in 2023, Grok is free to use on X. Users can ask it questions on the social media platform and tag posts they’ve directly created or replies to posts from other users. Last summer the company added an image generator feature, Grok Imagine, that included a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.
The Southeast Asian restrictions come amid mounting scrutiny of Grok elsewhere, including in the European Union, Britain, India and France. Grok last week limited image generation and editing to paying users following a global backlash over sexualized deepfakes of people, but critics say it did not fully address the problem.
