Facebook denies Kazakh claim of exclusive access to content reporting

The owner of Facebook, Meta Platforms (FB.O), disputed on Tuesday that the Kazakh government had been given exclusive access to the social network's content reporting system. The Kazakh government lauded the move as a compromise solution in a joint statement with Facebook on Monday, after the Central Asian nation threatened to shut Facebook for millions of local users. The Nur-Sultan administration had stated that an agreement, which would have been the first of its type in the post-Soviet Central Asian region, would ease the process of removing content that Kazakhstan deemed illegal. "Firstly, we did not issue a joint statement with the Kazakh government - instead, the Kazakh government released their own statement based on discussions we've had with them about our global process for requests from governments to restrict content that violates local law," Ben McConaghy, Meta Platforms director for policy communications in Asia-Pacific.

The government has said there were at least 3.2 million Facebook users in Kazakhstan. Other Meta Platforms applications such as Instagram and WhatsApp are even more popular.

Facebook has long faced criticism from rights groups for being too compliant with government censorship requests.

The service has mostly avoided shutdowns outside of countries such as China, where it has long been blocked but has faced pressure this year in a number of countries including India, Vietnam, and Myanmar.

By Editorial Panel
02 Nov 2021

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