Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg asked for ways to improve his service -- and he got them, particularly one about Facebook moderation in Ukraine. It collected more than 48,000 likes and the support of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
Gregory Kupershmidt, a native of Kherson, wrote that he has seen many
cases of unfair blocking of the Facebook accounts of top pro-Ukrainian
bloggers, who post about Russia’s war agaisnt Ukraine. He also suggested that
the problem is massive abuse of users’ abilities to complain about
“abusive” posts.
“Can
you or your team please do something to resolve this problem? Create a separate
administration for the Ukrainian segment, block abuse reports from Russia, or
may be just monitor more carefully top Ukrainian bloggers, but somehow help us,
please!” Kupershmidt implored.
On May 12, Poroshenko took matters a step
further by sharing Zuckerberg’s post with Kupershmidt’s comment. “Dear Mark,we have to use all available channels to get reaction from global
companies. Ukraine does need a Ukrainian Facebook office!” said Poroshenko’s post.
On May 14, Zuckerberg answered Kupershmidt and
Poroshenko in a live Q&A session, saying “thank you for the question that
45,000 people voted on and the Ukrainian president for writing it. I don’t
think we have gotten that one before.”
But Zuckerberg didn’t sound encouraging about
a Ukrainian Facebook office. “You know, over time it is something that we might
consider,” he said.
Zuckerberg said that he did some research and
found that the Ukrainian posts taken down included elements of ethnic slurs and
hate speech towards Russians. Posts with such content are not allowed on
Facebook, he said.
“I think we did the right thing according to
our policies, in taking down those posts and I agree that we must not support
hate speech,” said Zuckerberg.
He also dispelled rumors that Ukrainian
Facebook users are moderated out of the Russian office. He said there is no
Russian Facebook office and that the whole European segment is moderated out of
Facebook’s headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, where its employees speak different
languages and can recognize the meaning of the content posted by users from
different countries.
According to Kupershmidt’s comment, one
Facebook account was reported and blocked due to nudity in the post with a
photo of a Ukrainian girl who lost her father at war and received a posthumous
medal. The comment under the post also said “(Russian President Vladimir)
Putin, be cursed. And may everyone who supports you be cursed as well. Everyone til the
last one.”
The Facebook post of Marta March is mentioned by Gregory Kupershmidt as he asks for fair moderation of Ukrainian Facebook segment in his comment on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook post on May 7.
“We did one mistake where we accidentally told
folks that we are taking the post down because it cannot contain nudity instead
of hate speech,” Zuckerberg said. “We’ve fixed that and we reached
out and apologized to folks.”
Earlier the Kyiv Post reported on other cases of
moderation of the Facebook Ukrainian bloggers’ Facebook activities.
After the Q&A session many commented under
its video with disappointment.
Sasha Gryniuk, a Facebook user from Ukraine, said: “Your speech on Ukraine is
shameful, Mark. Facebook will lose
Ukraine as a market and you will see the effects of your irresponsibility very
soon.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Bozhena Sheremeta can be reached at [email protected]. The Kyiv Post’s IT coverage is sponsored by AVentures Capital, Ciklum, FISON and SoftServe.
