Facebook Bans Massive Israeli Aid Group for "Human Trafficking" Due to Bot Error
One of Israel’s largest charity groups, "Need Something???", has been deleted by Facebook. Co-founder Eitan Pasker reveals how posts about kidney donations and pet sitting were flagged as human trafficking by Meta’s algorithms. Read the full story.
Eitan Pasker, co-founder of the massive Facebook community "Need Something???" (Tzrichim Mashu???), woke up Monday morning to find one of Israel’s largest hubs for mutual aid completely deleted.
According to Facebook, the group was shut down for violating community standards regarding "human trafficking." However, the group’s administrators claim that Meta’s automated bots misidentified routine posts of kindness as criminal activity.
An internal review by the admins suggests that the platform's algorithms flagged the following types of posts:
"It’s clear this isn't what Facebook meant by that definition, but their bots apparently couldn't distinguish between acts of grace and criminal offenses," Pasker wrote in a painful update. "It’s devastating that a group that has helped over a million people simply no longer exists, and for no justified reason."
Because the shutdown was executed by an automated system, the administrators say they are facing a "brick wall" when trying to reach Meta’s customer service.
Pasker is now calling on the public and the media to help pressure Facebook Israel to restore the group. The timing is particularly critical as the Passover holiday approaches, a peak period for the group’s activity in providing essential aid to the needy and lone soldiers.
The founders are urging users to report the error to Facebook directly in hopes of overturning the automated decision and bringing the community back online.