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‘Facebook’s Tamil censorship highlights risk to everyone’ – The Intercept

Experts have said the censorship of the Tamil voices by Facebook threatens press and cultural freedom worldwide after the Tamil Guardian Instagram account was twice suspended last year, writes Sam Biddle in The Intercept today.

In October 2021, Facebook twice banned Tamil Guardian’s Instagram account, claiming that content had breached their ‘Dangerous Individuals and Organisations policy’.

Amidst uproar worldwide, as press freedom organisations and parliamentarians in Sri Lanka, Canada and the UK expressed their concerns, the account was restored.

Yet, despite Facebook meeting with the Tamil Guardian team, content has continued to be removed.

“Indeed, experts said Facebook’s censorship of the Guardian calls into fundamental question its ability to sensibly distinguish “dangerous” content that can instigate violence from journalistic and cultural expression about groups that have engaged in violence,” writes Biddle.

Read more from The Intercept here.

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