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How Facebook Overlooks Egypt’s Female Genital Mutilation Epidemic

March 17, 2023
Photo credit: REUTERS

Growing up in Egypt, female genital mutilation (FGM) was to me, a woman, a well-known, much-feared and widely discussed reality for Egyptian and African women. The word conjures up so many public service announcements warning against the dangerous practice. It elicits vivid and quite graphic pictures of the operation gone wrong and the many headlines of parents and legal or illegal practitioners being sentenced over the death of yet another young girl undergoing FGM. To most of us women living in various African countries, the threat of FGM is real; it is common and quite literally — as well as metaphorically — scarring. But something so obviously wrong, and so effortlessly recognizable as a crime against women and children, was not as obvious to spot and categorize as going against Facebook’s community standards to Meta’s content reviewers and the artificial intelligence (AI). When I tried to report comments supporting FGM and promoting illegal clinics performing it — which goes against two community standards listed; namely inciting violence and endangering children — Facebook did not agree. And this is when the penny dropped: how can a platform so popular be so…


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