8/21/22, 10:18 PM Oversight Board overrules Facebook deletion of Myanmar “hate speech” post – Free Expression Myanmar Intent: Unknown. The OB’s summary of a translation describes the user’s intent to influence government policy and law, which is protected under international human rights standards as political speech. The summary references “China” but does not clearly establish whether this is to insult (again, protected under international human rights standards) or to incite. Content and form: Word used is not profane Facebook deleted the post on the basis that it included the phrase “$တရုတ်” which includes the words “damn” ($) and “China” (တရုတ် – see above for multiple meanings). Facebook appears to regard “$” as a profanity, defined as, “terms or phrases with the intent to insult, including but not limited to fuck, bitch, motherfucker”, and, when followed by “တရုတ်”, is regarded as “hate speech”. However, “$” is not comparable to Facebook’s list of examples. A middle school teacher in Myanmar may use “$” when admonishing a child, but for an American teacher to use “bitch” would likely be a disciplinary matter. Rightly or wrongly, “$” has achieved the status of general social acceptance and therefore should not be regarded as having reached Facebook’s threshold of profanity. As there is no profanity, the phrase “$တရုတ်” is not “hate speech” under Facebook’s rules. This opinion may not apply to the full post, which remains undisclosed, nor should it prevent Facebook from encouraging more tolerant behaviour on its platform. Moreover, Facebook’s decision to define “$” as profane raises concerns that either its understanding of Myanma language is outdated or its threshold is intentionally low. Either of these would indicate a potentially more extensive violation of the right to freedom of expression in Myanmar, which is a trend that FEM has observed over https://freeexpressionmyanmar.org/oversight-board-overrules-facebook-deletion-of-myanmar-hate-speech-post/ 6/9