Loading ...Fair Policies or Racist Agenda Machines: The Censoring of Palestine by Social Media Giants
By: Menal Elmaliki / Contributing Writer
Accident or Intentional?
An incident had taken place on social media, the culprit Instagram, a user claimed that his biography, written in Arabic, was auto- translated to “Palestinian terrorist.” Given Meta’s long history of anti- Palestinian sentiment, journalists and activists claiming Palestinian censorship are now questioning whether the mistranslation was an incident or a calculated event.
According to Mashable, the incident was first reported by 404media, the TikTok user @ytkingkhan had noticed something abysmal, his bio on Instagram which included the Palestinian Flag, 🇵🇸, and the Arab word “Alhamdulillah” (Praise to God), had been translated to “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom”. The user taken aback, quickly posted to social media complaining about what he had just witnessed.
This comes at a time with heated tensions between Pro- Israel and pro- Palestinian supporters rising on digital platforms, college campuses, and the streets. Meta has since apologized blaming it on a glitch of faulty Arabic translations. Many users are now demanding answers, one user on X calling it a “hell of a glitch,” and another, “How is this in anyway justified??” Instagram is now being accused of shadow-banning Palestinian content from not only users but reputable sources such as news agencies, journalists, medical volunteers deployed in Gaza, and Gazans who are documenting the war. This comes at a surprise given instagram’s long history of censoring Palestinian content.
“Corporate leaders have had to weigh how far to go in any statements they make, as they search for a balance between denouncing the Hamas attacks and antisemitism, and decrying Islamophobia and calling for a cease-fire.”
“Companies Are Caught in the Israel-Hamas War’s Crossfire”. NYTimes
Social media giants, colleges, to corporate companies are now dealing with increased pressure to do what was right and to support freedom of speech even if it goes against an agenda. The incident of Instagram mistranslating Arabic phrases and spouting racism shows the complexity of freedom of speech and highlights the increase of hate towards Muslims and Arabs on digital platforms. Speech has now become politicized and freedom of speech is now conflated with hate speech. Content condemning Israel, supporting Palestinians, or journalists documenting the war is seen as hate speech or anti- Semitic. Big social media giants are being accused of racism, biases, and are guilty of promoting Israeli war propaganda and censoring journalists and activists speaking out against the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
Social Media Giants
LinkedIn was one company caught in the crossfire, it was accused of providing a platform to Pro- Israelis to bully those who shared anti- Israeli sentiment. LinkedIn had supposedly issued a warning to a pro- Israel website for using their website to find and shame users who share pro-Palestinian content or are just anti-genocide or anti-war. The website is called anti-israel-employees.com and it has published more than 17,000 posts, listing thousands of people who are in support of Palestine or are critical of Israel. The website attempts to shame them by sharing their profile photos, posts, workplace, and information. An employee of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn has made a public statement, “People are scraping pro-Palestine LinkedIn posts and adding them to a database of “terror supporters.” The Israeli company equates supporting Palestine with supporting terrorism, this has a negative effect on online speech, extracting information from Linkedin in order to violate free speech. Many have criticized LinkedIn for not doing enough to stop the harassment and doxxing.
Social Media Giants and Their Shady Stance of Freedom of Speech
The social media giant platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, and TikTok have been guilty of shadow banning Palestinian or anti-war content. On these platforms, content with hashtags “Free Palestine,” “I stand with Palestine,” are being hidden and censored. Authors, activists, filmmakers and journalists have all complained of being shadow banned on these major social media giants when discussing Palestinian related issues.
The Main Culprit Meta
Meta, the main culprit, despite their attempt to apply its “content policies fairly across its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram,” were one of the many companies alongside Alphabet, Intel, that dropped out of Europe’s biggest tech conferences, Web Summit, due to the C.E.O’s Paddy Cosgrove’s public condemnation of Israel’s actions. The incident forces the public to question Meta’s stance on freedom of speech and their role in helping propagate a certain agenda. Palestine or Palestinians being associated with hate speech and terrorism is not only social media’s hypocritical stance of freedom of speech but it fuels Israel’s agenda and spreads their war propaganda. They are clearly saying to be against war and the killing of civilians is to be anti-semitic.
Palestine, Hate Speech and Terrorism
One of the victims of social media giants supposed censorship is Belgian filmmaker, Thomas Madden, who noticed “a decrease in engagement” on TikTok after posting pro-Palestine content. The shadow ban has gone so far as to associate Palestine or pro-Palestinian accounts with hate speech and terrorism. TikTok has since spoken, stating that the company “does not moderate or remove content based on political sensitivities.” Meanwhile, it was reported by BBC that Meta is guilty and have since apologized for “adding the word terrorist to pro-Palestinian accounts.”
Not only has there been an ongoing war that has now become a genocide but a digital war. Pro-Palestinian supporters and journalists fail to escape censorship and face relentless and discriminatory shadow banning. Civil rights group such as 7amleh and the Arab Centre for Social Media Advancement have stated that tech companies do not respect the digital rights of Palestinians and the restrictions are a threat to “freedom of expression and access to information, freedom of assembly and political participation.” Since the war began, there has been 238 cases of pro- Palestinian censorship on mostly Facebook and Instagram.
Journalists such as Azmat Khan has been a victim of shadow banning, stating that this is a threat to the flow of credible information and journalism.” (al- Jazeera). Ameer Al- Khatahtbeg, who is the founder and editor- in- chief of Muslim, noticed a significant decrease of traffic on their Instagram. Before the war, it was 1.2 million to now just over 160,000 after the war. News outlets have also complained of censorship, Mondoweiss, a pro-Palestine news outlet complained of TikTok banning its account while Quds News Network Facebook page was suspended by Meta. According to 7amleh, this hasn’t been the first time Facebook has censored Palestinian content. Groups like ELSC and 7amleh are calling for social media users to report any incidents of the banning of Palestinian advocacy related content.
Another instagram user, Jess White, has reported she had gotten low engagement after reposting a poem by a Palestinian author on her story. She states, “I usually get 1,000 views on Stories and had only three views in 10 minutes when I shared a post that had the location as Gaza,” and she goes on to state that when she posted something unrelated hours later her views had gone up.
The tech giant Meta said in a statement that, “there is no truth to the suggestion that we are deliberately suppressing [voices].” They also mentioned that as a result of the escalating violence in the Israel- Hamas war they are closely monitoring and have removed anything they deem as violent or disturbing content. This isn’t the first time Meta has been accused of deliberate bias and censorship, in 2021, they were publicly condemned of censoring Palestinian voices after several incidents. The digital rights non-profit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has called their suppression “unprecedented” and “systemic.” In 2021, HRW published a report that documented Facebook’s censorship of the “discussion of rights issues pertaining to Israel and Palestine and warned that Meta was “silencing many people arbitrarily and without explanation.””
In 2021, more evidence was found of Meta’s censorship, Business for Social Responsibility conducted an independent investigation and found that the company’s content model “appear[s] to have had an adverse human rights impact on the rights of Palestinian users,” adversely affecting “the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights about their experiences as they occurred.”
Meta has been caused of “furthering the erasure of Palestinians’ suffering.” Meta has blamed the recent accusations of shadow banning since the Israel- Hamas conflict on a bug. Andy Stone, Meta’s company’s communications director, released an official statement on X, accusing “a bug” of impacting the visibility of posts.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) the problem is rooted in “Meta policies and their inconsistent and erroneous implementation, over-reliance on automated tools to moderate content, and undue government influence over content removals.“
The company is aware of its enforcement of misapplied policies on violence, incitement, hate speech, violent and graphic content and has misapplied its newsworthy allowance, removing dozens of content that documents Palestinian injury and death. Meta is aware that the enforcement of these policies is flawed and has vowed to protect freedom of expression and the right to protected expression which includes human rights abuses and political movements, even stating they are guided by their human rights responsibility and human rights principles.
Despite this promise to improve their policies, Human Rights Watch had recognized six patterns of censorship. These 6 patterns have recurred in at least 100 instances and they include; content removals suspensions or deletions of accounts, inability to follow or tag accounts, inability to engage with content, and restrictions on the use of Facebook and Instagram live. Another pattern includes shadow-banning which is the decreased visibility of an individual’s posts, stories, or account without warning. When shadow banned, the post or account is not recommended on the explore page, feed, reels and at times it is not found through search.
Deborah Brown, acting associate technology and human rights director at Human Rights Watch, complained and expressed her disappointment in Meta, “instead of tired apologies and empty promises, Meta should demonstrate that it is serious about addressing Palestine-related censorship once and for all by taking concrete steps toward transparency and remediation.”
Israeli Government’s Involvement
In 2020, from January to June, it was reported that Facebook received 913 appeals from Israel’s government to restrict and remove content and Facebook had startlingly consented to over 80% of the requests.
In 2023, a popular Al Jazeera investigative program, “What is Hidden is Greater,” revealed startling news, how much the Israeli government had influence over Meta’s censorship policies in regards to the occupation of Palestine and crimes against Palestinians. According to the investigation, Israel has “established a system of pressure and influence on Meta’s management to censor content showing its human rights violations against Palestinians.” The episode aired was titled, “Closed Space,” and it exposed the hidden reality of the social media giant Facebook and their relationship with the Israeli government. The investigation created two Facebook accounts, one account posted news about Israel and Palestine in Arabic and the other in Hebrew, and monitored Meta’s reaction to both.
The Facebook Experiment
On the Arab page, the team of the program posted news and photos of Palestinians “killed by the Israeli army in a raid on the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Almost immediately and without hesitation, Facebook deleted the content and warned the page it would be permanently blocked.” The same was done on the Hebrew page but with more graphic images. The result was that despite the photos being more graphic Facebook did not delete the page or give any warning because it was in Hebrew.
The al- Jazeera program also found evidence of Israel systematically pressuring and influencing Meta’s management. Facebook former director of Middle East and North Africa policy, Ashram Zeitoun, echoed these very concerns, going more in-depth, divulging that Israel has actually created a reporting army for the exact purpose of notifying Facebook of content they want removed. Ashraf also revealed that one pro- Israel Jewish U.S based organization has even launched an app to help users report anti- Israeli content. This revelation came at no shock as Eric Barbing, former director of the Israeli government’s Cyber Unit, admitted that the Israel requests Meta to censor content they deem as “hateful” or “anti- Semitic.” These hate and anti- Semitic content includes photos of Palestinians killed by Israel.
The program also reveals that Israel also influences Facebook’s algorithms. Algorithms are imperative and powerful because they determine what content can be seen by users and which content goes viral. The Palestine Chronicle, a Palestinian news site, has unveiled that their Facebook posts have been repeatedly censored and shadow-banned. The news outlet’s views have been reduced by over 95% and they are bared from gaining new followers. The program also found that 100s of Meta employees hold Israeli citizenship and some have ties to the Israeli government and army.
According to the program, “Among the most influential [Israeli] employees are Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, David Fischer, director of financial revenue at Facebook, as well as a former director of the Israeli Ministry of Justice, Amy Palmor, who is responsible for the cyber unit that fights Palestinian content. Curiously, this woman was appointed to Facebook’s oversight board, which raises questions about the independence of this board.”
Days after the release of the investigation on Al- Jazeera and with perfect timing, Meta’s Facebook had deleted the personal account of Tamer Almisshal, who is a Palestinian journalist and the host of the investigative program, “What is Hidden is Greater,” and without warning. This further exposes Israel’s powerful system of “pressure and influence” and how they are unbelievably capable of governing Meta’s decisions, rules, and algorithms.
Methods to Avoid Censorship
With Israel’s recent attacks heightening in Gaza, many social media users have ended up tricking the algorithm to avoid censorship and shadow banning in order to spread imperative information which is needed now more than ever.
Users have resorted to using “roundabout” tactics such as breaking up words with symbols, replacing the letter A, for example with @ to avoid being banned as hate speech or anti-Semitism. Other influences and accounts have including hashtags in their posts to promote Israel to ensure visibility. Nol Collective, a Palestinian fashion account, urged their followers to screenshot Palestine- related posts instead of directly sharing them on stories.
Despite the mass media referring to the conflict between Israel and Hamas as a war the general public has condemned it as an act of genocide perpetrated by the Israeli government. With the killing of over 50,000 Palestinian civilians, crippling of hospitals and infrastructure, the discovery of mass graves, and the torture of Gazans captured by the Israeli army, it is especially urgent and vital to share information. Due to social media giant’s bias censorship, policies, and shady actions- it has left many Palestinians without a voice, and journalists, activists, humanitarian aides without a means of spreading the truth.
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