Facebook complicity with Israel in muting Palestinian voices, probe finds

The popular investigative programme ‘What is Hidden is Greater’ on Al Jazeera Arabic has exposed the social media giant Facebook’s complicity with the Israeli occupation in the silencing of Palestinians.

Closed Space, a programme in the series, aired on Friday and centred on the creation of two Facebook accounts, one in Arabic and the other in Hebrew, which revealed how Facebook responded differently to each account, raising questions about the platform’s impartiality.

The investigation focused on Facebook’s differential treatment of content associated with the Palestinian communities as opposed to Hebrew content, which as a result, unveiled a pattern of Facebook exhibiting against Palestine, prompting concerns from various quarters.

Human rights activists and former Facebook officials who participated in the programme, acknowledged the systematic targeting of Palestinian content on social media platforms.

Deborah Brown, a digital rights researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW) emphasised that Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and its associated platforms, fails to sufficiently support human rights worldwide.

She pointed out the stark contrast in Facebook’s response to global events. For instance, during the Ukrainian crisis last year, Facebook allowed Ukrainians to condemn the violence perpetrated by Russian forces and encouraged global criticism. However, in the case of Palestine, the platform’s actions seemed inconsistent with the principles of free expression and impartiality.

Moreover, the programme’s investigation included admissions by Eric Barbing, former head of Israel’s cybersecurity agency, about his organisation’s effort to track Palestinian content according to criteria that included “liking” a photo of a Palestinian killed by Israeli forces.

According to Barbing, Facebook usually complies with the requests and Israel’s security agency follows up cases, including taking matters to court if needed.

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The programme also delved into the influence imposed by Israeli lobbying groups on Facebook’s leadership. According to Ashraf Zeitoun, Facebook’s former director of Middle East and North Africa policy, Israel gained control over Meta’s management including shaping Israeli policies that impacted the algorithms governing the platform’s operations.

“Hundreds of Meta employees hold Israeli citizenship, including managers, supervisors and technicians in various departments at its headquarters in Israel and the United States, some of whom had previous ties to the Israeli army and government,” Al Jazeera Net reported.

“Among the most influential employees are Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, David Fischer, director of financial revenue at Facebook, as well as the former director of the Israeli Ministry of Justice, Amy Palmor, who is responsible for the cyber unit that fights Palestinian content. Curiously, this woman was appointed to Facebook’s oversight board, which raises questions about the independence of this board,” it added.

Just two days after the programme’s broadcast, the personal and verified account of the Al Jazeera filmmaker, Tamer Almisshal, was unexpectedly deactivated. This action occurred without the customary 24-hour notice, reinforcing Israel’s influence over Facebook.

“Facebook retreated and reopened my account,” Almisshal wrote some time after the news network asked Facebook why it had removed his account with no prior warning or explanation.

Meanwhile, Julie Awano, a member of Facebook’s oversight board, admitted there is a discrepancy in how rules are interpreted and applied to Palestinian content and added that recommendations had been sent to Facebook to correct this.

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