<h1>Social Media Companies Undermine Justice in Yemen</h1>The Impact of Deleting Content Related to Human Rights Violations on Transitional Justice PillarsBy Mansour Al-Omari *&nbsp;There seems to be a lack of comprehensive research on the role and impact of social media companies in transitional justice processes, especially in United Nations literature. There is perhaps even less research on the impact of deleting content related to human rights violations on the pillars of transitional justice, including criminal justice, which is an indispensable pillar in stopping perpetrators and deterring potential perpetrators.Research is the best way to increase knowledge about a specific problem or issue. It involves collecting, organizing, and analysing evidence to gain a deeper understanding, find solutions, and discover more information. In an era where social media platforms have become a primary vehicle for communication, discussion, expression, organization, mobilization, photography, and blogging, it has become clear that there is a need to enhance and accelerate scientific research to study this global phenomenon, keep pace with its rapid development, and understand its inherent role and enormous impact on all aspects of human life.In this article, I attempt to explore some of this role and impact in relation to Yemen, relying primarily on the work of&nbsp;<a href="https://yemeniarchive.org/en/about">Yemeni Archive</a> project launched by Mnemonic Organization, and its conclusions regarding the deletion of content on major social media platforms: YouTube, Facebook, and X (formerly Twitter).<a href="https://mnemonic.org/en/about/index.html">Mnemonic</a> is a non-governmental organization that works in archiving and verifying open-source information related to human rights violations and international crimes. Mnemonic conducts research, monitors content moderation on social media platforms, and develops tools to support justice and advocacy for accountability. Mnemonic has created four independent archives that store open-source information that is at risk of being lost from Syria, Sudan, Yemen, and Ukraine.Yemeni Archive team began its work in 2019 and started collecting open-source content related to human rights violations in Yemen, published primarily on social media platforms, to preserve, document, and investigate this content, and to build a database to support human rights reports and assist in building legal cases, in addition to creating a digital memory.For example, through its years of work, Yemeni Archive found that YouTube disabled a large number of channels that publish content related to the war in Yemen, which included tens of thousands of videos. According to&nbsp;<a href="https://yemeniarchive.org/en/data-archive">Yemeni Archive data</a>, about 30% of the channels that Yemeni Archive monitored and stored in its database are no longer available online, either due to deletion or for other reasons.<img src="https://cms.yemeniarchive.org/uploads/BLOG_1a_af0199a684.jpg" alt="BLOG1a.jpg" srcset="https://cms.yemeniarchive.org/uploads/thumbnail_BLOG_1a_af0199a684.jpg 156w,https://cms.yemeniarchive.org/uploads/small_BLOG_1a_af0199a684.jpg 500w,https://cms.yemeniarchive.org/uploads/medium_BLOG_1a_af0199a684.jpg 750w,https://cms.yemeniarchive.org/uploads/large_BLOG_1a_af0199a684.jpg 1000w," sizes="100vw" width="1080" height="1080">&nbsp;<h3>The impact of deleting content related to human rights violations and war crimes on transitional justice</h3>Content published on social media platforms is increasingly used worldwide as a source of evidence and information to be used in trials, to provide justice for victims, to investigate allegations, to document history, and to preserve memory. These objectives constitute essential elements in transitional justice processes in their various forms.The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/transitional-justice/about-transitional-justice-and-human-rights">says</a> that transitional justice processes include:&nbsp;truth-seeking, prosecution initiatives, various types of reparation, and a wide array of measures to prevent the recurrence of new violations, including constitutional, legal, and institutional reform, the strengthening of civil society, memorialization efforts, cultural initiatives, the preservation of archives and the reform of history education – as required and appropriate in the specific context. (1)&nbsp;Social media platforms are a new carrier of information and evidence about crimes, victims, and perpetrators. The role of open-source information is not limited to proving the occurrence of crimes, but also extends to helping identify victims and perpetrators. Content on these platforms plays an increasingly important role and is sometimes the only evidence of the occurrence of a crime, or proof of the identity of the victim or perpetrator. This evidence or proof may also be used in national or international courts, including the International Criminal Court. It also plays an important role in achieving the objectives of the Geneva Conventions and universal jurisdiction in accountability and combating impunity.<h3>Social media content in courts</h3>There are increasing examples of the use of open-source content published on social media platforms in arrest warrants and courts proceedings as circumstantial evidence and even direct or conclusive evidence, in relation to international crimes.In 2015, the first trial in Sweden for a war crime in Syria was based on a video (2) posted on Facebook. On February 26, 2015, a Swedish court sentenced Syrian citizen Mouhannad Droubi to eight years in prison for committing a war crime, after Swedish police discovered a video of him violently assaulting a man who appeared to be a captured fighter.In 2018, the International Criminal Court (3) relied heavily in its proceedings on content published on social media platforms to issue an arrest warrant for a Libyan leader on charges of committing war crimes in Libya.In the arrest warrant in 2017, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court concluded that the Libyan military leader Mahmoud al-Werfalli is " appears to be directly responsible for the killing of, in total, 33 persons… The executions took place in the course of seven incidents."The court described the seven incidents by watching videos posted on social media, for example in the first incident the court said that Mr. Werfalli appears in a video recording wearing spotted pants and carrying a weapon... and Mr. Werfalli's voice can be heard saying "Put your hands up!" After that, he shoots a person with his left hand a number of times and the person falls on the ground, and that the video depicting this incident was posted on Facebook on 3 June 2016 (4).&nbsp;However, content related to human rights and published on social media is subject to intentional deletion and loss, so there has been a need to deal with this issue in a precise and legal manner to preserve the evidentiary and legal value of the content. For example, Syrian Archive, supported several trials of international crimes committed in Syria, based on its work in preserving and archiving open-source content that are at risk of being lost.Social media content is an important source for investigating and uncovering facts, one of the most important pillars of transitional justice, and a platform for oral memory.In 2021, the National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations of Human Rights (5)&nbsp;, the Yemeni government body responsible for monitoring and investigating human rights violations in Yemen that have occurred since 2011, stated in its tenth periodic report (6) &nbsp;that it had "reviewed and analysed hundreds of photographs and videos related to violations, which were worked on and preserved within the Commission's database", during the period from 1 June 2021 to 31 June 2022 (7).&nbsp;In 2021, the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen identified in its final report its recommendations to the Security Council, which included exploring accountability mechanisms to ensure justice and redress for victims in Yemen. These recommendations cannot be implemented, and their requirements cannot be fully met without preserving content published on social media, verifying it, and then using it in justice and accountability processes to provide redress for victims and hold the perpetrators accountable.In 2021, local and international human rights organizations &nbsp;called (8) on the UN Security Council in an urgent appeal to "pursue concrete steps to advance a holistic and credible accountability and redress strategy for Yemen".&nbsp;All of these Yemeni and international recommendations and calls call for justice through the accountability of perpetrators and redress for victims. The content published on social media also constitutes a key element in providing information and evidence, and its deletion undermines justice for Yemen and contributes to the cover-up of perpetrators, the exacerbation of impunity, and the continued suffering of victims and their families.It does not appear that all efforts by international human rights organizations and calls by politicians and governments are met with a meaningful response from social media platforms. As these platforms continue to delete (9) content related to crimes and human rights violations committed in various conflicts around the world.To ensure that the rights of victims are respected, and to avoid distorting historical narratives and memory, content related to conflicts must be saved from accidental loss or deliberate deletion, especially that contains evidence. This goal requires work and cooperation between several parties, including the United Nations, international and local organizations, and social media companies. Many countries are enacting laws to regulate the work of social media companies to protect the basic rights of users, and rights and intellectual property related to songs and films, among others. These countries can and should enact laws to protect the rights of individual victims and communities, through justice and accountability, which are fundamental rights, including by forcing social media companies to preserve content related to conflicts.The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights affirms that ensuring the accountability of perpetrators of serious crimes and other gross violations of human rights and providing redress for victims and affected communities are obligations under international law. The continued deletion of content with evidentiary value and evidence of crimes and violations by social media companies seriously undermines justice and may violate international law. Social media companies continue to avoid making meaningful efforts to provide solutions to these problems. Therefore, these companies must be pushed to take serious steps, including through legal means, to fulfil their promises and provide real solutions.To this day, more than a decade after the Yemeni people called for change and justice, and after many years of war that has devastated Yemen and caused great suffering for Yemenis, there is no clear and effective path or mechanism for achieving justice in Yemen. Social media platforms should not exacerbate this tragic deficiency against Yemen and its people by deleting information and evidence that is needed in any process aimed at achieving justice as the basis for sustainable peace, through transitional justice processes or any other justice mechanism.&nbsp;* Mansour al-Omari: A human rights defender and legal researcher. He holds a master's degree in law, specializing in transitional justice and conflict. Al-Omari works with international and Syrian human rights organizations to hold perpetrators of international crimes in Syria accountable. In 2012, al-Omari was arrested and tortured by the Syrian government for 356 days for documenting their atrocities while working with the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression as the supervisor of the detainees' documentation office.&nbsp;------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- &nbsp;<ol><li>About transitional justice and human rights, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/transitional-justice/about-transitional-justice-and-human-rights">https://www.ohchr.org/en/transitional-justice/about-transitional-justice-and-human-rights</a> (accessed on 16 October 2024).</li><li>&nbsp;Facebook ‘torture’ video leads to Sweden arrest, The Local, 2 February 2015, available at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20150202/syria-fighter-charged-in-sweden-over-war-crime/">https://www.thelocal.se/20150202/syria-fighter-charged-in-sweden-over-war-crime/</a> (accessed on 2 October 2024).</li><li>&nbsp;The Prosecutor v. Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli, Case No. ICC-01/11-01/17, Second Arrest Warrant, 4 July 2018, available at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2018_03708.PDF">https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2018_03708.PDF</a> (accessed on 2 October 2024)</li><li>&nbsp;The Prosecutor v. Mahmoud Mustafa Busayf al-Werfalli, Case No. ICC-01/11-01/17, Public Document, Arrest Warrant, 15 August 2017, available at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2017_05208.PDF">https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/CR2017_05208.PDF</a> (accessed on 2 October 2024).</li><li>&nbsp;The National Commission defines itself on its website as “A national mechanism for monitoring and investigating allegations of human rights violations committed on the territory of the Republic of Yemen by all parties established by the Republican Resolution No. (140) for 2012 and its amendments, based on the texts of the Gulf Initiative and its executive mechanism, and Security Council Resolution No. 2051 of 2012 and Resolution No. “2140” for 2014 and other related Human Rights Council resolutions.” Available at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nciye.org/en/?page_id=105">https://www.nciye.org/en/?page_id=105</a> (accessed on 2 October 2024).</li><li>&nbsp;NCIAVHR Releases the 10th Periodic Report and Announces the Documentation of 3,609 Violations, NCIAVHR, available at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.nciye.org/en/?p=1209">https://www.nciye.org/en/?p=1209</a> (accessed on 2 October 2024).</li><li>&nbsp;In its report, Returned to Zero, The Case for Reparations to Civilians in Yemen, Mwatana for Human Rights noted that the National Commission to Investigate Alleged Violations of Human Rights does not have the power to compel these actors to take up their responsibility nor the mandate to award reparations itself,&nbsp; Yemen and Coalition States have routinely ignored the Commission’s recommendations, and that cases investigated by the Commission are supposed to be referred to the Yemeni judiciary “so that perpetrators of human rights violations are brought to justice and the victims receive reparations.” Returned to Zero, The Case for Reparations to Civilians in Yemen is available at&nbsp;<a href="https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/621cfefe2b950d85b2a1e2d1/646c4312eaae250ef4991132_Returned-To-Zero-Report-2022-En_3.pdf">https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/621cfefe2b950d85b2a1e2d1/646c4312eaae250ef4991132_Returned-To-Zero-Report-2022-En_3.pdf</a> (accessed on 16 October 2024).</li><li>&nbsp;Ensure Accountability for Yemen at the UN Security Council, 17 February 2021, Mwatana for Human Rights, available at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.mwatana.org/posts-en/ensure-accountability-for-yemen-2">https://www.mwatana.org/posts-en/ensure-accountability-for-yemen-2</a> (accessed on 16 October 2024).</li><li>&nbsp;The difficulty of conserving social media evidence of war crimes, Le Monde, 10 April 2022, available at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2022/04/10/the-difficulty-of-conserving-social-media-evidence-of-war-crimes_5980187_13.html">https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2022/04/10/the-difficulty-of-conserving-social-media-evidence-of-war-crimes_5980187_13.html</a>&nbsp;(accessed on 16 October 2024).</li></ol>

Social Media Companies Undermine Justice in Yemen

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Social Media Companies Undermine Justice in Yemen

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