The Board questioned the extent to which Meta has gone to remove by mistake what it labeled as “legitimate political content”.
The Meta Platforms’ Oversight Board advised on September 4 its parent company Facebook against automatically removing the sentence ‘From the river to the sea’, generally used to display solidarity with the Palestinian people.
“‘From the river to the sea’ has several meanings, and as such its use cannot in itself be deemed to be harmful, violent or discriminatory,” the Board, which operates independently but is funded by the United States social media firm, said.
The Board went on to explain that the phrase ‘from the River to the Sea’ actually refers to the River Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, “between which lie Israel and the Palestinian Territories. It is often chanted at pro-Palestinian demonstrations.”
According to the Board, critics of this particular phrase view it as anti-Semitic while others challenge this interpretation.
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“Context is crucial. Simply removing political speech is not a solution. There needs to be room for debate, especially during times of crisis and conflict,” Oversight Board co-chair Pamela San Martin added.
The Board revealed that it has come to this conclusion following the review of three cases of users who used the phrase on Facebook.
“Three pieces of content containing the phrase ‘From the River to the Sea’ did not violate Meta’s Community Standards, and the company was right not to remove them, the Oversight Board said in a statement.
The Board questioned the extent to which Meta has gone to remove by mistake what it labeled as “legitimate political content” and the effectiveness of blocking harmful content from reaching users’ feeds.
It also criticized Meta’s denial of access to its data.
“The reality is that without better access to Meta’s data, it is hard to know. Instead of increasing transparency, Meta has closed down CrowdTangle and restricted access to its replacement, the Content Library. We strongly urge Meta to rethink its approach and more fully support independent monitoring,” the statement read.
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The Litigation Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University- which promotes free speech – Alex Abdo, labeled the decision by the Board as “thoughtful (and in my opinion, correct).”
The Jewish advocacy group the Anti-Defamation League, considered the decision as “short-sighted”.
“Usage of this phrase has the effect of making members of the Jewish and pro-Israel community feel unsafe and ostracized,” it said.
Facebook Ties with Israel
Al-Jazeera’s popular investigative program ‘What is Hidden is Greater’, exposed in its episode titled ‘Closed Space’ on September 8 the troubling relationship between the social media giant, Facebook, and the Israeli government.
Ashraf Zeitoun, Facebook’s former director of Middle East and North Africa policy, revealed to the program that, at the end of 2016, Israel fashioned a law that punished, with heavy financial penalties, companies that don’t cooperate with requests from the Israeli government to remove Palestinian content they consider ‘antisemitic’ and ‘hateful’.
The former director of the Israeli Cyber Unit, Eric Barbing, acknowledged Israel’s direct involvement, as it officially asks Meta to delete words or phrases that Tel Aviv deems offensive.
This includes pictures of Palestinians killed by Israel. The former Israeli official said that Facebook quickly responds and, indeed, removes the majority of the content that violates Israel’s expectations.
Additionally, the program exposed the double standards and bias by Facebook regarding posts published in Arabic and others in Hebrew.
(PC, MEMO)
