Thousands gather in Turkiye following death of Hamas leader

LONDON: Tech giant Meta recently announced it will begin removing social media posts that use the word “Zionist” in contexts that refer to the Jewish people and Israel rather than representing supporters of the political movement, in an effort to curb antisemitism in its field.

Facebook and Instagram's parent company previously said it would lift its blanket ban on the single most common phrase in all Meta fields — “shaheed,” or “martyr” on English language – after a year-long study by its supervisory board found that the procedure was. “Overroad.”

Similarly, TikTok, X and Telegram have long pledged to strengthen efforts to curb hate speech and the spread of defamation on their platforms in light of the ongoing war in Gaza.

These actions are designed to create a safer and less toxic online environment. However, as experts have repeatedly pointed out, these efforts often fail, resulting in empty promises and a worrying tendency towards censorship.

“In short, social media platforms are not very good at preventing censorship or blocking hate speech and defamation about the war in Gaza,” said Nadim Nashif, founder and director of 7amleh, an advocacy group. human rights and human rights for the Palestinians, in the Arabs. News.

“During the conflict, censorship and the removal of accounts also undermined efforts to document human rights violations on the ground.”

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

Since the October 7 attacks led by Hamas that sparked the conflict in Gaza, social media has been flooded with conflict-related content. In many cases, it acts as an important window into the dramatic events unfolding in the region and becomes an essential source of real-time news and action. the Israeli movement.

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

However, none of the social media platforms — including Meta, YouTube, X, TikTok, or messaging apps like Telegram — have publicly released policies aimed at mitigating hate speech and incitement. conflict-related violence.

Instead, these platforms continue to be flooded with war propaganda, dehumanizing rhetoric, claims of genocide, blatant calls for violence, and racist hate speech. skin color. In some cases, the platform removes pro-Palestinian content, disables accounts, and sometimes bans users from expressing their support for the people of Gaza.

On Friday, Turkiye's communications authorities blocked access to Meta's Instagram social media platform. Local media said access was blocked in response to the removal of Instagram posts by Turkish users who expressed sympathy for the recent assassination in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Earlier in the day, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim accused Meta of being a coward after Facebook posts about Haniyeh's killing were removed. “Let this be a clear and unequivocal message to Meta: Stop this cowardice,” wrote Anwar, who has repeatedly condemned Israel's war on Gaza and its actions in the occupied West Bank. , on his Facebook page.

Meanwhile, images of Israeli soldiers allegedly blowing up mosques and buildings, burning Qurans, torturing and humiliating blindfolded Palestinian prisoners, driving them strapped to the hoods of military vehicles, and glorified war crimes can still be seen freely on mobile screens.

“Historically, the platform has been very bad at adapting content about Israel and Palestine,” Nashif said. “During the war on Gaza, and the massacre of reasonable people, it got worse.”

A Human Rights Watch report titled “Meta's Broken Promises,” published in December, accused the company of “systematic online censorship” and “inconsistent and vague enforcement of its policies.” ” and practices that have silenced voices in support of Palestine and Palestinian humanity. rights on Instagram and Facebook.

The report added that Meta's actions “fail to meet the human rights obligations” given years of failed promises to address “excessive repression”.

Jacob Mukherjee, founder of the political communication MA program at Goldsmiths, University of London, told Arab News: “I'm not sure how far you can really call it an effort to stop censorship.

“Meta promised to carry out a comprehensive review – which, in fact, has been promised for two years now since the escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict in 2021 – before October 7 of the year – gone.

“But as far as I'm concerned, not much has changed, really. They had to respond to the suggestion that they engaged in censorship, of course, but I see it as a PR effort.”

Between October and November 2023, Human Rights Watch documented more than 1,050 removals and other suppressions of content on Instagram and Facebook posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including content about human rights violations.

Of these, 1,049 involved peaceful pro-Palestine content that was improperly censored or destroyed, while one case involved the removal of pro-Israel content.

However, censorship seems 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, recorded more than 8.6 million since the start of the war.

Nashif says the proliferation of violent and harmful content, especially in Hebrew, is due to a lack of investment in moderation.

This content, which primarily targeted Palestinians on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, was used by South Africa as evidence in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Arguably, Meta is not alone in what South African lawyers have described as the first massacre broadcast live on mobile phones, computers and television.

X has also faced accusations from supporters of Palestine and Israel for giving free rein to a fund known to spread defamation and fabricated images, often shared by political figures. and media.

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

“When it comes to AI, the platform does not publish clear and transparent information about when and how the AI ​​system is applied in the content editing process. The policy is often vague and leaves a lot of freedom for the platform to do as he sees fit.”

For Mukherjee, the maturity issue behind the vague smoke policy is highly political, requiring these companies to take a “balanced” approach between political pressure and “managing things user expectations and desires”.

He said: “These AI tools can be used to prevent the real authorities, that is, the people who run the sector, from criticizing and taking responsibility, which is the real problem.

“These sectors are independent monopolies that are responsible for regulating an important part of the political sector.

“In other words, it helps to shape and regulate the sphere of discourse, where people can form their opinions, where politicians can feel the pressure of public opinion, but cannot be trusted.” they are complete.”

While there have been examples of pro-Palestinian content being censored or removed, as Arab News reported in October, these sites made it clear, before the Gaza conflict, that it was not in their interests. eventually removing the content from their domain.

“These forums are not for the public good or to ensure that we have an informed and educated public that is exposed to a variety of viewpoints and equipped to make good decisions and form opinions,” he said. Mukherjee.

“The reality (is) that the business model really wants a lot of content and if that's pro-Palestinian content, then so be it. In the end, we still get eyes and engagement on the platform, and content that creates strong emotions, to use the terms of the industry, get engagement, and that means data and that means money.