Responding to allegations of “shadow banning”, or restricting the
Palestinian-related content
about the war amid Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, social media companies such as
Snapchat
, and
and Facebook-parent company
Meta
have dubbed the implication that Big Tech “deliberately and systemically suppresses a particular voice” as false.
These companies have been accused of blocking certain content or users posting Palestine-related content. Last year, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report also criticised the social media companies for relying too heavily on “automated tools for content removal to moderate or translate Palestine-related content”. Hamas terrorists and Israel have been at war since October.
Recently, Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan also limited Palestinian-related content.
“It can be nearly impossible to prove that you have been shadow-banned or censored. Yet, it is hard for users to trust platforms that control their content from the shadows, based on vague standards,” she said at the Web Summit Qatar held last month.
The report noted that foreign journalists are also not allowed to report from the Gaza Strip, implying that there could be reduced coverage from international media outlets. The social media has content that is full of pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli narratives. These platforms have been seen as a key source for users looking for content and information about the war.
What Meta, Snapchat have to say
Hussein Freijeh, the vice president of MENA (Middle East and North Africa) for Snapchat, told CNBC at Web Summit Qatar that these firms have “a really important role to play in the region.”
“We have all the algorithms in place to moderate the content,” Freijeh said, adding that the platform also uses a “human component to moderate that content to make sure that it’s safe for our community.”
Meanwhile, a Meta spokesperson told the publication that the HRW report “ignores the realities of enforcing our policies globally during a fast-moving, highly polarised and intense conflict, which has led to an increase in content being reported to us.”
“Our policies are designed to give everyone a voice while at the same time keeping our platforms safe. We readily acknowledge we make errors that can be frustrating for people, but the implication that we deliberately and systemically suppress a particular voice is false,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Instagram does not intentionally limit content reach
The Meta spokesperson also said that the company “is not intentionally limiting people’s stories reach,” and it does “not hide/deprioritise posts from a user’s followers based on whether a hashtag tagged to the post is blocked.”
In addition, Meta noted that it uses “technology and human review teams to detect and review content that may go against our Community Guidelines. In instances where we recognize that a decision has been inaccurate, we will restore the content.”
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