An Investigation Exposes How Facebook and Instagram Biased Against the Palestinians During the Gaza War

A recent study conducted by the independent consulting company Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) for Meta, the owner of the Facebook and Instagram platforms, confirmed that it was biased against Palestinians and violated their digital rights during the Israeli attacks last year.

In May 2021, Meta was accused of collaborating with the Israeli security services and deleting and monitoring thousands of Palestinian accounts and posts during the forced evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood and the Israeli attack on Gaza.

More than 12 NGOs concerned with human rights issued an open letter last month, protesting the delay of Meta in presenting this report after it had pledged to publish it in the first quarter of this year.

 

Intentional Bias

A report by BSR stated that Meta's actions in May 2021 had a negative impact on the human rights of Palestinian users and their ability to freely express and share information and insights on what is happening with them.

As reported by The Intercept on September 22, 2022, the BSR report exposed the censorship imposed by the two social media platforms (Facebook and Instagram), revealing their bias against the Palestinians during the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and occupied Jerusalem during that period.

BSR prepared the report, commissioned by Meta, after criticisms leveled at it by Palestinians and human rights institutions for deliberately silencing the Palestinian voice, deleting posts and hashtags on its platforms, and imposing censorship on any content related to the Israeli aggression on Gaza in May 2021 and the events that preceded it.

"Many Palestinians who tried to document violence and protest using the two platforms had their posts automatically restricted without consulting them," the report indicated.

On its part, more than 70 human rights and civil society organizations welcomed, in a joint statement, the results of the report, which came years after they called on Meta to conduct an independent review of content management policies with regard to Palestine.

They called on the company to abide by its promises and make urgent and fair changes regarding Palestinian content, which is still subject to continuous attacks, in flagrant violation of freedom of expression and international law, in addition to being subject to double standards far from neutral.

 

Double Standards

According to the BSR report, Meta removed Arabic content related to violence in the past year at a much higher rate than posts in Hebrew, underscoring the double standards in the two companies' policies on content related to Palestine.

The BSR, which prepared the report, attributed the difference in treatment to a lack of experience, noting that discrimination against Palestinian content persisted even in cases that were reviewed by employees and not just by algorithms.

"Meta lacks employees who understand other cultures, languages, and histories, despite having more than 70,000 employees and $24 billion in cash reserves," it concluded.

During the outbreak of violence, Palestinian and Arab social media users revived an old Arabic script in an attempt to beat Facebook's algorithm and express their support for Palestine.

According to Middle East Eye, on September 22, 2022, the BSR report failed to charge Meta with willful bias, referring instead to the unintentional bias that leads to different human rights implications for Palestinian users and Arabic speakers, which is an indication that these systematic practices are in no way limited to the events of May 2021.

"Meta's policy of dangerous figures and organizations, which prevents its users from praising or representing a number of groups, focuses primarily on Islamic entities and thus has a disproportionate impact on Palestinians," the report found.

"Palestinians are likely to violate Meta's digital identifiers policy due to the presence of Hamas as the governing entity in Gaza and political candidates affiliated with specific organizations," the report noted.

The report concluded with 21 non-binding recommendations, which included increasing the ability of staff to understand and process Arabic-language publications, reforming the policy of dangerous figures and organizations, and using the same mechanisms with Hebrew content.

According to The Intercept, Meta has made a loose pledge to implement or consider implementing 20 of the 21 recommendations.

 

Full Review

On its part, Meta said that it had already implemented a number of recommendations made in the review carried out by a consulting company regarding the impact of Meta policies and procedures on its decisions during the Israeli aggression on Gaza in May 2021.

Meta stated that it is committed to implementing the 10 recommendations contained in the report, adding that it has partially implemented 4 recommendations, while it is currently examining the possibility of implementing 6 other recommendations permanently and effectively, according to what was reported by CNET on September 27, 2022.

The company explained that the evaluation process may take a different time from one recommendation to another, noting that it will provide more details in this regard in its next annual report on human rights.

In response to a question about the delay in publishing the report that Meta pledged to publish during the first quarter of 2022, Meta said that it began working internally to review its policies and procedures immediately in May 2021 and that this work included assigning an independent body to prepare a report on human rights.

"As soon as it received the report of the recommendations, it began working on preparing its response so that they would be published at the same time, and that this required a period of time to collect information from various parties and then write the final response and review it carefully," the company explained.

Meta pointed out that it is conducting a comprehensive review of its policies on violence, incitement, figures, and organizations who represent a danger, how it handles political debates about banned groups, and what can be done about content that glorifies violence.

 

Digital Rights

In a related context, 7amleh Center, a group that defends Palestinian digital rights, warned in its report on September 27, 2022, that "the results of the study published by BSR do not sufficiently shed light on the relationship between the Israeli government and Meta, and turn the company's intentional bias into an unintentional one."

Although BSR identified several reasons for Meta restricting Palestinian and Arabic content, it downplayed the importance of the role practiced by the Israeli government.

"The Israeli cyber unit sends tens of thousands of voluntary content removal requests annually to Meta, with the company responding to about 90% of these requests," according to the center.

"There are many examples that highlight the special relationship between Meta and the Israeli occupation, which uses this relationship to pressure the company to remove Palestinian content and suppress Palestinians' digital rights, as Defense Minister Benny Gantz did publicly during the May 2021 gift," the center added.

In turn, the Euro-Med Monitor's chairman and founder, Mr. Ramy Abdu, said that "the recent study should constitute a turning point in the company's handling of Palestinian and Arab content when it comes to publishing and reporting human rights violations."

"The hostility that Meta has pursued over the past years towards Palestinian content has restricted users' access to information, as many users rely on those accounts that Meta has closed earlier to obtain information that may help them make decisions related to their safety," he added.

"The company's practices not only restricted the right of many users to freedom of expression but also impeded the work of human rights organizations, which depend in large part of their work on content posted by users in conflict areas to track and investigate violations and reach victims," Mr. Abdu emphasized.

Meanwhile, Palestinian journalist Iyad Hamad confirmed in a statement to Al-Estiklal that "the BSR report is further evidence of the discrimination and racism practiced by Meta Company against Palestinian content, and its excessive censorship and management compared to Hebrew content."

"A period of two months ago, there was a fierce campaign by Facebook, which is owned by the Meta company, against the accounts of most Palestinian activists and journalists, as accounts were closed, posts were deleted, and others were restricted," he added.

The journalist continued, "Facebook deals with Palestinian content very badly, which leads me to feel that the management of Facebook in the Middle East is completely Israeli."

"The bias committed by Meta against the Palestinian content is a systematic and clear policy that aims to practice blackouts, muzzling and distorting the Palestinian struggle on the one hand, and supporting Zionist incitement campaigns on the other," Mr. Hamad said.