Instagram blocked in Turkiye for third day

LONDON: Tech giant Meta recently announced it will begin removing social media posts that use the term “Zionist” in contexts where they refer to the Jewish people and Israelis, rather than representing supporters of the political movement, in an effort to reduce antisemitism on its platforms.

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram previously said it would lift its blanket ban on the most moderate term across all Meta platforms – “shaheed” or “martyr” in English – after a year-long review by its supervisory board found the approach to be “too broad”.

Similarly, TikTok, X and Telegram have long pledged to step up efforts to curb hate speech and the spread of misinformation on their platforms amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

These initiatives are aimed at creating a safer and less toxic online environment. However, as experts have consistently pointed out, these efforts often fall short, resulting in empty promises and a worrying trend towards censorship.

“In short, social media platforms have not been very good at avoiding censorship or limiting hate speech and disinformation about the war in Gaza,” Nadim Nashif, founder and director of 7amleh, a group of digital rights and human rights activists for Palestinians. News.

“Throughout the conflict, censorship and the removal of accounts have jeopardized efforts to document human rights violations on the ground as well.”

Nashif says hate speech and incitement to violence remain “used”, particularly on the Meta and X platforms, where anti-Semitic and Islamophobic content continues to “spread widely”.

Since the October 7 Hamas-led attack that sparked the Gaza conflict, social media has been flooded with war-related content. In many cases, it has served as a crucial window into the dramatic events unfolding in the region and has become a vital source of real-time news and accountability for Israeli actions.

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

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

Instead, these platforms remain flooded with war propaganda, dehumanizing speech, genocidal statements, explicit calls for violence and racist hate speech. In some cases, platforms remove pro-Palestinian content, block accounts, and sometimes ban users who express support for the people of Gaza.

On Friday, Turkiye's communications authority blocked access to the Instagram social media platform owned by Meta. Local media said access was blocked in response to the removal of Instagram posts by Turkish users expressing condolences for the recent killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

The previous day, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim accused Meta of cowardice after his Facebook post about Haniyeh's killing was removed. “Let this serve as a clear and unequivocal message to Meta: stop this stage of cowardice,” Anwar, who has repeatedly condemned Israel's war on Gaza and its actions in the occupied West Bank, wrote on his Facebook page.

Meanwhile, images of Israeli soldiers allegedly blowing up mosques and houses, burning copies of the Koran, torturing and humiliating blindfolded Palestinian detainees, driving them around with handcuffs on the hoods of military vehicles and celebrating war crimes remain freely available on mobile screens.

“Historically, platforms have been very bad at moderating content about Israel and Palestine,” Nashif said. “Throughout the war in Gaza and the plausible genocide going on, this has simply been exacerbated.”

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

The report added that Meta's behavior “falls short of its human rights responsibilities” due to years of failed promises to address “excessive repression”.

Jacob Mukherjee, organizer of the MA program in political communication at Goldsmiths, University of London, told Arab News: “I'm not sure to what extent you can even call them efforts to stop censorship.

“Meta promised to conduct various reviews – which, by the way, it has been promising for several years since the last recrudescence of the Israel-Palestine conflict in 2021 – before October 7 last year.

“But as far as I can see, not much has changed, substantially. They had to respond to suggestions that they were involved in censorship, of course, but this was mainly a PR effort from my point of view.”

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

Of these, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine that was unduly censored or suppressed, while one case involved the removal of content in support of Israel.

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, has recorded more than 8.6 million such content since the start of the conflict.

Nashif says the proliferation of violent and harmful content, predominantly in Hebrew, is largely due to insufficient 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.

Meta is probably not alone in bearing responsibility for what South African lawyers have described as the first genocide broadcast live on mobile phones, computers and television screens.

And X has faced accusations from both Palestinian and Israeli supporters that he has given free reign to handles known for spreading disinformation and fake images, which have often been shared by prominent political and media figures.

“One of the major problems with current content moderation systems is the lack of transparency,” Nashif said.

“When it comes to AI, platforms do not release clear and transparent information about when and how AI systems are implemented in the content moderation process. Policies are often opaque and allow platforms a lot of leeway to do what they see fit.”

For Mukherjee, the issue of moderation happening behind a smokescreen of murky politics is highly political, calling on these companies to take a “balanced” approach between political pressure and “managing the expectations and desires of the user base.”

He said: “These AI tools can somewhat be used to insulate the real power holders, meaning the people running the platforms, from criticism and accountability, which is a real problem.

“These platforms are private monopolies that are essentially responsible for regulating an important part of the political public sphere.

“In other words, they help shape and regulate the arena in which conversations take place, in which people form their opinions, from which politicians feel the pressure of public opinion, and yet are completely unaccountable.”

While there have been examples of pro-Palestinian content being censored or removed, as Arab News revealed in October, these platforms have made it clear, long before the Gaza conflict, that it is ultimately not in their interest to remove content from their platforms.

“These platforms are not made for reasons of public interest or to ensure that we have an informed and educated population that is exposed to a range of perspectives and is equipped to make appropriate decisions and form opinions,” Mukherjee said.

“The fact (is) that business models actually want there to be a lot of content, and if that's pro-Palestinian content, then so be it. Ultimately, it's continuing to get attention and engagement on the platform and content that drives strong sentiment, to use industry terms, getting engagement, and that means data, and that means money.”