Meta’s Oversight Board says viral video left on Facebook threatened LGBTQ+ people in Nigeria

Meta’s oversight board expressed serious concern Tuesday over the company’s failure to take down a violent graphic video.

Meta's oversight board expressed serious concern Tuesday over the company's failure to take down a viral graphic video showing two men bleeding after they were apparently beaten up for being allegedly gay.

The video was posted in Nigeria, one of more than 30 of Africa’s 54 countries where homosexuality is criminalised by laws that garner broad public support despite constitutional guarantees of freedoms. Such laws are often used to target and illegally arrest people suspected of being gay, with abuses against them often ignored.

The report said the damage done by the video, which was viewed more than 3.6 million times between December 2023 and February this year, was “immediate and impossible to undo.”

The board said the content “shared and mocked violence and discrimination” and though reported multiple times and reviewed by three human moderators, it stayed on Facebook for about five months despite breaking four different rules.

“With the video left up, the odds of someone identifying the men and of the post encouraging users to harm other LGBTQIA+ people in Nigeria increased,” the panel said. “Even after it was removed, the Board’s research shows there were still sequences of the same video remaining on Facebook.”

In the video, two men were seen bleeding as a crowd of people interrogated them about their identity and sexual orientation.

Meta couldn’t be reached for immediate comment.