Sabah Khodir is an Egyptian-American writer and activist based in Cairo with more than 33,000 followers on her Instagram profile, where she combines posts about her work and life with political content. On average, he explains, around 7,000 people watch his stories, sometimes as many as 12,000. But since Israel launched its latest military offensive in Gaza and Khodir began publishing more about the situation in Palestine and expressing solidarity, opinions have barely risen to a hundred. “This is a recurring problem, it’s nothing new,” he slips. “And that only happens with Palestine.”
Like Khodir, many users of Instagram and Facebook belonging to Meta, as well as dozens of human rights and civil society organizations, denounce that in recent weeks these platforms have disproportionately censored content and accounts in support of Palestine without compelling reasons. The main forms of this practice include restrictions on the visibility of these types of publications and users, as well as their limitation, suspension and elimination; and limitations on the use of some functions of these platforms.
More information
This social network management, to which many in the region turn for information amid a widespread perception in major Western media outlets that a pro-Israel narrative of events prevails, has once again brought their moderation policies and practices into the spotlight moved. And it also generates criticism because it restricts access to information as well as users' freedom of expression and political participation. “When it comes specifically to Palestine, [la visibilidad de mi contenido] It's always much less. My profile was attacked [anteriormente] because I reported sex offenders and yet I was never held back; Only when it comes to Palestine,” Khodir notes.
From the start of Israel's offensive in Gaza to the end of November, Human Rights Watch identified more than 1,000 cases of censorship of content posted on Facebook and Instagram by Palestinians and their supporters from more than 60 countries. It is much older. The 7amleh Center for Promoting Social Media in the Arab World has also documented hundreds of cases.
Among the most notable are the suspension of the Quds News Network on Facebook, where it had nearly 10 million followers, according to 7amleh, and the temporary suspension on Instagram of Eye on Palestine, which had 6 million followers. Given this pattern, as of October 13, 90 human rights and civil society groups from around the world denounced discrimination and disproportionate censorship of Palestinian content.
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An Egyptian researcher in critical studies of artificial intelligence, who prefers not to publish her name due to the sensitivity of the topic, explains that this large-scale practice is possible because, in addition to human reviewers, major social platforms also have a highly automated process. Text recognition, machine learning techniques, computer vision and deep learning programs that allow them to identify all types of content that violate their moderation policies.
“Determining what constitutes incitement to hatred, anti-Semitism, terrorism and advocacy of terrorism is problematic because it is an inherently subjective act,” he says. In the case of Palestine, he adds, “there have been cases where there has been confusion between pro-Palestinian and solidarity slogans and slogans that were seen as having affinity or endorsement of Hamas violence,” making it difficult “to strike a balance between freedom of expression and adhere to content moderation guidelines.”
Fight the algorithm
In response to the criticism, Meta said on October 13 that it had formed a operations center with Hebrew and Arabic speakers to respond to the crisis, acknowledging that some had been “inadvertently removed” due to the increase in reported content. The company noted that it removed or reported nearly 800,000 pieces of content between October 7 and October 10, but did not provide details on how much of it was in Hebrew and how much in Arabic, saying that in those days have removed seven times more content per day for violating its privacy policies. Dangerous organizations and individuals who have been criticized in the past for disproportionately impacting Palestinians. It also blocked hashtags whose content violated the rules and lowered the threshold at which certain content is not recommended. In another statement, Meta denied he was “intentionally” suppressing a voice. EL PAÍS has contacted Meta but has not received a response at the time of this publication.
“They always claim that there are so-called errors or technical glitches, but in the end they always lead to discrimination, censorship and the silencing of not only Palestinian voices, but also citizens around the world who are committed to protecting Palestinian human rights in solidarity with Palestine,” says Itxaso Domínguez de Olazábal, head of EU political advocacy at 7amleh.
An external report into Meta's handling of its platforms during the Israeli military offensive in Gaza in May 2021 concluded that its actions appeared to have had a “detrimental impact on the human rights of Palestinian users” and their ability to share information. It also found that Arabic content was more susceptible to being accidentally removed and that rates of active detection of potentially infringing content were higher in Arabic than in Hebrew. It also identified unintentional biases where its policies and practices most adversely affected the rights of Palestinian and Arab users.
Hate speech
A separate case is the former Twitter, which now actually does this and regardless of their credibility and who manages them. X is also criticized for its lack of control over hate content. Since the Israeli offensive in Gaza began, 7amleh has recorded more than 2.5 million violent posts in Hebrew
On October 10th, Palestinians. The company's chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, published a letter the next day to EU Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton saying they had removed hundreds of Hamas-linked accounts, but made no mention of other cases. It also recalled that its rules prohibit, among other things, content that threatens to damage “the homes and shelters of civilians or infrastructure essential to everyday, civilian or commercial activities,” but their application in the case of senior Israeli officials is unclear is.
“On Twitter, under the banner of freedom of expression, they allow an incredible amount of hate speech and violent statements, including from authorities.” [israelíes] and often they are accompanied by misinformation,” says Domínguez.
The Egyptian researcher and Domínguez also note that this disproportionality occurs in a context of great power asymmetry between social platforms and their users, as well as between Palestinians – and those who express their solidarity – and Israelis. For example, on October 19, the Cyber Department of the Israeli Prosecutor's Office reported that it had reported more than 6,200 pieces of content on social networks and assured that about 90% of its requests to meta-platforms had been accepted.
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