Call for comments: Oversight Board’s case related to Armenian prisoners of war

Oversight Board is announcing a new case for consideration. As part of this, they are inviting people and organizations to submit public comments.

Case selection

As they cannot hear every appeal, the Board prioritizes cases that have the potential to affect lots of users around the world, are of critical importance to public discourse, or raise important questions about Meta’s policies.

The case that they announced is:

Armenian prisoner of war video

(2023-004-FB-MR)

Case referred by Meta

The Board would appreciate public comments that address:

• How social media platforms should moderate content depicting prisoners of war, including content that may originally have been created for the purpose of propaganda, which is now being shared with additional context to raise awareness of abuses.
• The potential public interest value, and potential harms, of allowing content depicting prisoners of war on social media platforms.
• How international humanitarian law (also known as the law of armed conflict) should inform Meta’s human rights responsibilities when moderating content depicting prisoners of war.
• How Meta could mitigate the risks of harm caused by either allowing or removing content depicting prisoners of war.
• How Meta should approach preserving content depicting potential war crimes.
• Insights into the socio-political context regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in particular regarding the treatment of prisoners of war.

Public comments

If you or your organization feel that you can contribute valuable perspectives that can help with reaching a decision on the case announced today, you can submit your contributions here. The public comment window is open for 14 days, closing at 15:00 UTC on Wednesday, April 5.

For more information, please click here.