Human Rights Watch (HRW), in its new report, has accused Meta of repeatedly removing or restricting content supporting Palestine or Palestinian human rights.
The report accuses Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram, of suppressing many pro-Palestine posts due to flawed content moderation, poor implementation, and alleged “undue government influence”.
The group said that it found over 1,000 pieces of pro-Palestine content, asserting that these posts did not breach Meta's guidelines but were nonetheless restricted or removed between October and November 2023.
The removed content included posts with images of injured or dead bodies in Gaza hospitals and comments saying, “Free Palestine” and “Stop the Genocide.”
In another case, the group reported that a user attempted to post a comment comprising only Palestinian flag emojis, but received a warning from Instagram stating that the comment "may be hurtful to others".
Responding to the report, Meta said in a statement that the HRW report doesn’t reflect its efforts to protect speech related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
It read, “This report ignores the realities of enforcing our policies globally during a fast-moving, highly polarized and intense conflict, which has led to an increase in content being reported to us."
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