Meta 'Taking Steps' to Censor Support for Palestinian Resistance

The European Commission has been leading the charge to silence voices that support Palestinians online just as EU governments are banning pro-Palestine rallies

OCT 13, 2023

US tech giant Meta, the conglomerate behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, on 13 October announced it is “taking steps” to remove “praise and substantive support” of Palestinian resistance factions fighting against the Israeli army on the Gaza border.

“Since the terrorist attacks by Hamas on Israel on Saturday and Israel’s response in Gaza, expert teams from across our company have been working around the clock to monitor our platforms," Meta says in its statement, careful to characterize Israel's carpet bombing campaign of residential buildings in Gaza as merely a “response.”

The decision by the tech giant comes on the heels of a pressure campaign launched by the European Commission to “remove illegal and harmful content” to comply with its Digital Services Act (DSA).

Meta's compliance contrasts with that of X, formerly known as Twitter, as the company asked Brussels for “ more information of violations on its site.” This resulted in an investigation being launched into X.

“This week, EU officials sent a letter to X owner Elon Musk warning that if an investigation finds that the company had failed to meet its legal obligations in connection with content about the war, it could face steep penalties, including billions in fines,” CNN reports.

Nonetheless, X has suspended hundreds of accounts allegedly “affiliated” with the Palestinian resistance over the past week.

Since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October, social media has been inundated with images of the operation's success and the devastation caused inside Gaza by Israeli bombs.

However, the spread of disinformation has also spiked, reaching even the highest levels of the US government.

In response to this, social media giants have fallen back on their old tactics of suppressing pro-Palestine speech and shutting down the accounts of journalists.

On Tuesday, a Mondoweiss West Bank correspondent had their Instagram account suspended. The US-based website had its TikTok account taken down one day earlier.

“The censorship of Palestinian voices, those who support Palestine, and alternative news media who report on the crimes of Israel’s occupation, by social media networks and giants like Meta and TikTok is well documented,” Yumna Patel, Palestine news director of Mondoweiss, told The Intercept. 

“We often see these violations become more frequent during times like this, where there is an uptick in violence and international attention on Palestine. We saw it with the censorship of Palestinian accounts on Instagram during the Sheikh Jarrah protests in 2021, the Israeli army’s deadly raids on Jenin in the West Bank in 2023, and now once again as Israel declares war on Gaza,” Patel added.

Many Instagram and Facebook users also report having restrictions placed on their accounts, as the Meta-owned companies hide search terms relating to Hamas and Al-Aqsa Flood. Accounts and posts are also being geo-blocked, forcing many across the west to rely on the narrative pushed by mainstream media outlets.

In September, an investigation by Al Jazeera Arabic revealed the Israeli government’s influence over Meta’s censorship policies concerning the occupation of Palestine and crimes against the Palestinian people.