Meta censorship is having a ‘devastating’ impact on Palestinian news sources

Meta’s policy of censorship is having a “devastating” impact on Palestinians, according to a new report by a prominent Arab media watchdog.

The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, also known as 7amleh, collected 20 first-hand testimonies from Palestinian influencers, journalists and media outlets who have experienced the tech conglomerate’s discriminatory practices.

Since October 2023, with the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Meta has been accused of censoring Palestinian content and groups on Facebook and Instagram, two of the social media platforms it owns.

The testimonies collected by 7amleh highlight the closure and shadow-banning of community pages, local media outlets and influencer accounts, leading to a steep decline in engagement.

According to 7amleh, more than 15 million posts in Hebrew inciting against Palestinians have been documented across social media platforms since October 2023.

Yahya Alsayed, a manager of the Ask Jerusalem community group, which provides information for Jerusalem-based Palestinians, said the page was first suspended for a year in 2021 following the attempted evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.

Even after the group was restored, he said they continued to be shadow-banned and their audience interaction dwindled.

Another media outlet, Arabs48, said they had faced repeated restrictions over the past year.

“Meta surprised us by deleting our Facebook page twice without any prior notice, message or warning. The page is still deleted,” said Dima Kabaha, one of the outlet’s editors.

“As for our Instagram page, access to it is restricted and low and may reach up to a maximum of 2,000 followers per post and a few hundred per story. Our account no longer appears when searching for it, and the collaboration option has been restricted.”

Others interviewed included influencers Adnan Barq and Ali Obeidat, who lost access to features like live streaming and collaborations, with Obeidat’s Facebook and Instagram accounts being deleted 83 times.

“I started receiving many messages from friends and acquaintances asking why I stopped posting on Instagram. I was surprised by that because I was posting all the time, but it turned out that my content was not reaching them,” said Barq.

“Before the war, my average views on stories was between 20-30k, but after the war, the average was barely between 3-7k.”

7amleh said Meta’s policies are leading to loss of income, emotional distress and self-censorship among Palestinian journalists and influencers.

A Meta spokesperson told Middle East Eye: “We have been public about the fact that we adopted a number of temporary product and policy measures in response to this conflict, and we also have broader policies on recommendability and demotion that can impact pages like this.”

“We acknowledge we make mistakes, but any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false,” they added.

Freedom of expression violated

Since Israel’s war on Gaza began following the Hamas-led attack on 7 October, social media posts by Palestinian journalists and citizens have become key sources of information, as the Israeli government has banned international media from entering the strip.

Palestinians also use social media to call for help or get news about loved ones amid frequent telecommunications blackouts imposed by Israel on the besieged territory.

“The continued discriminatory practices by Meta against Palestinian content constitute a clear violation of international standards for freedom of expression,” said Jalal Abukhater, advocacy manager at 7amleh.

“We call on Meta to take serious and urgent steps to reform its policies and ensure Palestinians’ right to use digital platforms without suppression or discrimination.”

Another report released by the BBC on Wednesday said that Meta’s practices have led to a steep drop in audience engagement for newsrooms in the occupied West Bank and Gaza since October 2023.

Palestine TV, an outlet with 5.8 million followers on Facebook, shared data with the BBC showing a 60 percent drop in the number of people seeing their posts.