Facebook on a smartphone (illustration).

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Many wondered if the supervisory board of Facebook, responsible for playing the arbitrators on moderation, could evolve independently.

We now have an element of response with the first decisions, announced Thursday: in four of the five cases examined, the council restored controversial posts deleted by Facebook.

And the twenty wise men, who notably include lawyers, journalists and a former Danish prime minister, criticized the network's too “vague” moderation policy.

In France, Facebook had deleted a post in a group dedicated to Covid-19, which denounced an alleged scandal at the National Medicines Agency and claimed that hydroxychloroquine could save lives.

Facebook had "removed the content on the grounds that it violated its rule on disinformation and imminent physical danger."

But according to the council, "these drugs are only available by prescription" and "the user was not encouraging to buy them without a prescription" but "was opposed to public policy".

The "immediate danger" is therefore not established, and the sages judged that the post should be restored.

A high threshold for "incitement to hatred"

Likewise, the council considered that the deletion of a quotation from Goebbels explaining that an argument, in order to convince, should not appeal to intellect but to emotion, could not be deleted for the simple reason that the comments were attributed to a Nazi leader.

The council also ruled that a post in Burma claiming that "Muslim men had a psychological problem" was "offensive" but did not reach the level of "incitement to hatred".

Unsurprisingly, topless photos posted on Instagram as part of a campaign against cancer have been restored in Brazil.

Council criticizes Facebook's automatic algorithm that identified nudity by missing the words "breast cancer."

In the end, the only decision that has been validated is the deletion of a post for "hate insult" in the context of the armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Decision on Trump's account expected by April

"In several cases, members wondered if Facebook's regulations were clear enough," adds the "council of wise men", which has issued several recommendations, including asking Mark Zuckerberg's group to be more transparent on how it moderates disinformation.

Facebook must comply with the decisions of this body.

If these cases were not particularly high profile, it will not be the following: the council must decide by April on the "indefinite" suspension of Donald Trump.

Given the line taken, it would not be surprising to see the former president make his return to Facebook, no doubt with stricter moderation.

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