Paris terror-attack photograph blamed by Facebook for huge spike in censorship

Facebook said government requests for user data and content restrictions spiked in the second half of 2015, citing a single photograph taken from inside the Bataclan Theatre in Paris for causing state-ordered censorship to nearly triple.

In the most recent biannual Global Government Requests Report put out by the social network, Facebook said Thursday it restricted access to 55,827 items from July to December in order to comply with varying laws from country to country, up from 20,568 items during the previous six-month span.

Chris Sonderby, deputy general counsel for Facebook, said in a statement that “the increase in restricted content in this half is almost entirely due to one photo related to the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris.”

Eighty-nine people were killed Nov. 13 inside the Paris venue during a terrorist attack at a concert by Eagles of Death Metal, an American rock band. A total of 130 people were killed in a series of coordinated attacks across the city that evening.

Facebook was contacted by French authorities in the aftermath of the attack and was asked “to remove a number of instances of a photo taken inside the Bataclan concert venue depicting the remains of several victims,” the social network said.

“The photo was alleged to violate French laws related to protecting human dignity,” Facebook explained.

The company ultimately decided that the image was not in violation of its own Community Standards in examples where it was shared by users to either “denounce the attack or to show compassion for victims,” but agreed to restrict access to the image in 32,100 instances in France.

 

While Facebook did not provide further details regarding the image, Newsweek suggested the photograph in question is a grizzly snapshot taken from the Bataclan’s theatre in the aftermath of the attack. A Daily Mail article that shows a censored version of the image has been shared 10,000 times through social media and email since being published two days after the attack.

In India, Facebook said it restricted access locally to a photograph shared in September depicting a boy urinating on the country’s flag, while U.K. users were blocked from accessing a number of groups related to raffles after being contacted by the country’s Gambling Commission.

The transparency report also acknowledges that government requests for account data increased by 13 percent globally during the second half of 2015, from 41,214 requests to 46,763 — including 19,234 requests by American law enforcement for details concerning more than 30,000 unique accounts. Facebook produced at least some data for police in about 81 percent of those instances, the company said.

“We recognize there are serious threats to public safety and that law enforcement has an important responsibility to keep people safe,” Mr. Sonderby said. “Our legal and safety teams work hard to respond to legitimate law enforcement requests while fulfilling our responsibility to protect people’s privacy and security.”