Facebook has hidden the entries of the Auschwitz Museum. Poland’s decisive reaction

The Auschwitz Museum said on Facebook on Friday that 21 of its posts commemorating the camp’s victims were flagged as violating community standards, including by showing “adult nudity and sexual activities,” “hate speech” and “incitement of violence.” Although the Museum appealed to Meta on this matter, only some of these posts were restored.

“This terrible incident undermines the important work of our institution,” the Museum wrote. “It is unacceptable and insults the memory of the victims of Auschwitz, which we want to perpetuate. It hurts the survivors, their ancestors and all those who sacrificed themselves to save historical memory,” the entry added. The museum also demands explanations in this matter, and above all, a reversal of Meta’s decision. One of the posts deleted and not yet restored is the one from April 6, commemorating the tragic fate of Jewish children from an orphanage in Izieu, France.

Facebook tags Auschwitz Museum entries. There is a reaction from the Ministry of Digitization

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski from the New Left commented on the matter on Saturday. “Hiding posts commemorating the victims of Auschwitz is a scandal and an illustration of problems with automatic content moderation. We will demand information from Meta about the reasons for this situation. There should be more moderators, and those who work on the Polish market should know not only the language (which is not the case here). was a problem), but also the context,” he emphasized. “This is one of the reasons why we are working so intensively on the implementation of the European DSA law (Digital Services Act),” he added.

Digital Services Act. Work on the Polish act is underway

As the Ministry of Digitization explained in February, DSA introduces, among others: control over how platforms moderate content. “On the one hand, it is about the efficient removal of illegal content on the Internet, on the other hand, it is a matter of protecting the user’s rights to appeal against the platform’s decisions. A user whose content has been removed or blocked should receive a justification for this decision from the platform. Additionally, in the case of platforms, the user should have the opportunity to appeal against the platform’s decisions within the internal complaint handling system,” the ministry explained.

“DSA regulations also require platforms to provide information on their content moderation policies and the operation of algorithms. Thanks to this, the user can learn how content is assessed and how the platforms work,” it was pointed out.