US, France call for ‘utmost restraint’ in Middle East

LONDON: Tech giant Meta recently announced it will start removing social media posts that use the term “Zionist” in a context that refers to Jews and Israelis, rather than supporters of political movements, in an effort to crack down on anti-Semitism on its platforms.

Facebook and Instagram’s parent company previously said it would lift Meta’s ban on the most-moderated term across all platforms — “shaheed,” or “martyr” in English — after a year-long review by the Oversight Board found the approach “too broad.”

Similarly, TikTok, X and Telegram have long promised to step up efforts to crack down on hate speech and the spread of misinformation on their platforms amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

These initiatives aim to create a safer and less toxic online environment, but experts have consistently pointed out that these efforts often fail, resulting in empty promises and worrying trends in censorship.

“In short, social media platforms are not very good at circumventing censorship or controlling hate speech and disinformation about the war in Gaza,” Nadim Nashif, founder and director of 7amleh, a Palestinian digital and human rights activist group, told Arab News.

“Throughout the conflict, censorship and account removals have also impacted efforts to document human rights violations on the ground,”

Hate speech and incitement to violence remain “prevalent,” Nashif said, particularly on Meta and X platforms, where anti-Semitic and anti-Islam content remains “widespread.”

Since the October 7 Hamas attack that sparked the conflict in the Gaza Strip, social media has been abuzz with content related to the war. In many cases, social media has served as a key channel for staying informed about major events taking place in the region, becoming a key source of real-time news and accountability for Israeli actions.

Profiles supporting actions by both Hamas and the Israeli government have been accused of sharing misleading and hateful content.

Yet social media platforms, including Meta, YouTube, X, TikTok, and messaging apps like Telegram, have yet to publicly adopt policies designed to curb hate speech and incitement of conflict-related violence.

Instead, these platforms are flooded with war propaganda, inhumane rhetoric, genocide, calls for violence, and racist hate speech. In some cases, platforms remove pro-Palestinian content, block accounts, and sometimes ban users who express support for the people of Gaza.

Turkey's state media agency blocked access to Meta's Instagram social media platform on Friday. Local media reported that the blockade came in response to Instagram's removal of a Turkish user's post expressing condolences over the recent killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim had earlier accused Meta of being a coward after a Facebook post about Haniyeh's killing was removed. “Let this be a clear and unequivocal message to Meta: Stop this display of cowardice,” Anwar wrote on his Facebook page, which has repeatedly condemned Israel's war on Gaza and Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, videos of Israeli soldiers bombing mosques and homes, burning copies of the Quran, torturing and humiliating Palestinian prisoners by blindfolding them, driving detainees around while tied to the hoods of military vehicles, and celebrating war crimes are still available for free on mobile phone screens.

“Historically, platforms have been bad at policing Israeli and Palestinian content,” Nashif said. “Throughout the ongoing war in Gaza and the ongoing genocide, the problems have only gotten worse.”

A Human Rights Watch report, “Meta's Broken Promises,” released in December, accused the company of “systematic online censorship” and “inconsistent and opaque enforcement of policies and practices” that have silenced supporters of Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook.

The report also said Meta’s behavior “fails to meet its human rights responsibilities,” as the company has failed to make commitments to address its “excessive repression” over the years.

“I’m not sure if I can really call this an attempt to stop censorship,” Jacob Mukherjee, coordinator of the Masters in Political Communication at Goldsmiths, University of London, told Arab News.

“Meta has promised to conduct the audits, which the company has, by the way, been committed to for two years since the last outbreak of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2021, before October 7 of last year.

“But as far as I can see, nothing has changed. They have to respond to the suggestion that they have been censoring. Of course, that’s just a PR effort.”

Between October and November 2013, Human Rights Watch documented more than 1,050 removals and other blockings on Instagram and Facebook posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including content about human rights violations.

Of these, 1,049 cases involved pro-Palestinian peace content that was unreasonably censored or suppressed, while one case involved the removal of pro-Israel content.

However, censorship appears to be only part of the problem.

7amleh's Violence Indicator, which monitors real-time data on violent content in Hebrew and Arabic on social media platforms, has recorded more than 8.6 million pieces of such content since the conflict began.

Nashif said the prevalence of violent and harmful content, much of it in Hebrew, is the result of insufficient investment in moderation.

This content, which is primarily directed at Palestinians on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, has been used as evidence by South Africa in its anti-Israel case at the International Court of Justice.

Meta is perhaps not alone in its responsibility for what South Africa’s lawyers have described as the first genocide to be broadcast live on mobile phones, computers and television screens.

X has also faced accusations from both Palestinian and Israeli supporters of giving freedom to those known to spread false information and manipulated images, often shared by political and media figures.

“One of the major problems with the current content moderation system is the lack of transparency,” Nashif said.

“When it comes to AI, platforms have not been transparent and transparent about when and how AI systems are used in content moderation. Policies are often not transparent and leave platforms free to act as they see fit.”

For Mukherjee, the question of moderation that arises under the veil of policy ambiguity is deeply political, requiring these companies to take a “balanced” approach between political pressure and “managing the expectations and needs of their user base.”

“These AI tools can be used to insulate those in power, such as those running platforms, from criticism and accountability, which is a real problem,” he said.

“These platforms are private monopolies whose primary function is to control key parts of the political public sphere.

“In other words, they are helping to shape and control the arena where conversations take place, where people form their own opinions, where politicians feel pressure from public opinion but are not held accountable.”

While there were examples of pro-Palestinian content being censored or removed by Arab News in October, the platforms made it clear before the Gaza conflict that it was ultimately not in their best interest to remove content from their platforms.

“These platforms are not created for public interest reasons or to ensure that we have an informed and educated population, that they are informed and that they are exposed to diverse perspectives and that they are equipped to make informed decisions and form opinions,” Mukherjee said.

“The reality is that the business model demands a lot of content, and if it’s pro-Palestine content, so be it. At the end of the day, content that gets eyeballs and engagement on the platform still matters, and content that incites strong emotions, to use the industry terminology, gets engagement, which means data and money.”