The barring of a non-terrorist group for ‘terrorist activity’ sparks debate – again – about how overloaded moderators can handle content fairly and accurately

Facebook censored a group of supporters of Chechen independence for violating its community standards barring “organizations engaged in terrorist activity or organized criminal activity”, the latest example of the social network mistakenly censoring government dissidents.

The Facebook group, Independence for Chechnya!, was “permanently deleted” by Facebook in late May, according to the group administrator, an Estonian human rights activist who asked to be identified by her initials, MP. She said she was “shocked” when she received a message from Facebook informing her of the deletion. “We do not support terror,” MP said. “We support [a] political[ly] legal way for returning Chechen independence.”

After the Guardian contacted Facebook about the group, it was reinstated. A company spokesperson said that the deletion had been made “in error” and pointed out that with “millions of reports each week”, the company “sometimes gets things wrong”.

The case is just the most recent example of how Facebook’s mission of creating a more “open and connected” world can be compromised by its gargantuan task of policing billions of pieces of content.

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In recent weeks, the company has censored a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist for publishing a series of posts alleging corruption by Maltese politicians and an abortion rights organization for violating its policy against the “promotion or encouragement of drug use”. In all of those cases, Facebook reversed its decisions after it was contacted by the Guardian.

Facebook is also facing complaints from critics who argue the network is not censorious enough and is failing to stamp-out extremist or abusive content.

The Chechen independence group, which had about 6,000 members, had existed for almost a decade and was originally created by a resident of Chechnya, according to MP, who said she took over administration of the group after the original administrator was forced into hiding due to threats to his relatives. The group is supportive of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, an unrecognized government consisting of exiled leaders from the wars for independence.

While some Chechen separatist groups, such as the Caucasian Emirate, are considered terrorist organizations by the US government, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria is not. Indeed, the group is specifically listed as “not violating” in a list of terrorist groups that the Guardian reviewed as part of the Facebook Files. One Facebook moderator told the Guardian that content reviewers have “less than 10 seconds” to make a decision about whether content should be censored or not, making the careful policing of extremist content a “mission impossible”.

MP said that her group was used “to spread news about … what Chechens really want and how they think” because “there is no real free media in Russia”. “My friends and me, we wanted to give the Chechen point of view.”

It’s a modest but difficult goal: press freedom is tenuous in Russia as a whole, and basically non-existent in Chechnya, a Russian republic ruled with an iron first by Ramzan Kadyrov.

“Local media works according to one principle: ‘Do not make Kadyrov angry,’” an anonymous Chechen journalist wrote in the Guardian last year. “Today, I do not know a single journalist here who would agree to work on a story that was anything other than positive about life in post-war Chechnya.”

Kadyrov was selected to lead Chechnya by Vladmir Putin, and he has been linked to the assassination of Russian opposition leader Boris Nemstov and accused of various human rights violations, including the reported detention and torture of hundreds of gay men.

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The Chechen leader has a particularly authoritarian attitude toward social media. He enthusiastically documents his lifestyle to his 2.7m followers on Instagram, while retaliating harshly against Chechens who voice even mild dissent on social networks. A favored tactic is public humiliation – forcing those who wrote negative comments to appear on local television to renounce their views and apologize.

While the Chechen group has been restored, the case raises concerns for press freedom advocates about how Facebook is wielding its power to censor. Not every group of dissidents will catch the attention of a news organization or advocacy group, said Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of free-speech advocacy group PEN America, and that seems to be a much more reliable means of redress than Facebook’s official system for appealing censorship decisions.

“If that dissident group doesn’t have the channels or access to power to get through to Facebook at a higher level, they may just find themselves silenced,” said Nossel. “What is necessary is a more accessible, transparent, timely process of individual appeal and the provision of rationale that make this incredibly powerful hand that Facebook and other platforms wield something that is more understandable and can be a subject of public debate.”