FB’s policy inconsistency puts Israelis at risk
Facebook has undergone various policy changes when it comes to dealing with hate speech – some for the worse and some for the better. But consistent enforcement of its “community standards” continues to be a major challenge for the social media giant.
Over the last few weeks, Facebook has faced criticism from both pro-Israel and anti-Israel factions over removal of content by individuals on both sides. But removal is only the beginning.
Many pro-Israel users are reporting temporary suspensions from the platform for seemingly innocuous posts about Israel, but controversial Palestinians who have openly supported terrorists don’t seem to be suspended even after repeated infractions, and their posts are not removed for days despite (at least) dozens of reports. In some cases, content is not removed after reports, then removed several days later after multiple additional reports.
This raises the question: What is Facebook’s policy on content actually celebrating terrorism?
Over the last month, Muna El Kurd, the Sheikh Jarrah activist who’s made international headlines with her brother, had at least five posts removed within the span of two weeks, according to updates received from Facebook. One of El Kurd’s removed posts featured a picture of Hitler, and at least four of her posts featured the glorification of Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist responsible for the death of 38 Israelis, including 13 children, in the Coastal Road massacre.
According to her social media posts, Mughrabi is El Kurd’s “role model.” A recently posted photo by Palestinian political party Fatah also featured El Kurd with
her Dalal Mughbrai phone cover, taking a selfie. The caption praised both El Kurd and Mughrabi explicitly. Yet when this post was reported, Facebook first refused to remove it, and only after several days was it finally taken down, with no additional explanation or update provided.
When contacted for comment over the specific issue of El Kurd’s pro-violence posts, Facebook stated: “We do not allow praise or support for groups, leaders or individuals who have engaged in violence. This includes historical figures. We have removed content for violating our policies in this area and applied restrictions on some accounts.”
However Facebook did not answer why El Kurd’s posts took up to a week in some cases to remove, or whether El Kurd’s account specifically had been placed under suspension, despite being asked directly.
Ironically, El Kurd, presumably angry over her pro-terrorism content being removed, has begun pushing back against Facebook by promoting a social media campaign dramatically named “End Digital Execution” which claims Palestinians are being “censored” by Facebook. The irony, of course, is that this is the opposite of the truth. Despite multiple posts that clearly violate Facebook’s policies by its own admission, El Kurd is very active on the platform on a near daily basis. So who exactly is censoring her?
In contrast, consider content from Israeli social activist Yoseph Haddad, which called out The New York Times for using a photo of a Hamas terrorist and listing him as a child who was killed by the IDF. This post was removed without any explanation whatsoever.
In May, a pro-Israel Facebook page with 77 million followers was removed completely due to violating “spam” policies, after anti-Israel activists left hundreds of thousands of antisemitic comments. Yes – you read that correctly. Facebook removed a pro-Israel page due to the actions of antisemites targeting the page. Similarly, dozens of pro-Israel activists have found themselves with content randomly removed and accounts suspended over generically pro-Israel content.
IF PRO-ISRAEL or anti-Israel activists are posting content that violates Facebook’s policies, they should be dealt with accordingly, but the double standards in enforcement cannot continue, especially when activists like El Kurd are not simply repeating falsehoods about Israel at a time of rising antisemitism, but are also actively glorifying terrorists to her more than one million followers.
Make no mistake – these double standards put Israelis at risk.
It is utterly unacceptable that accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers are permitted to have pro-terror content for days, even after it’s been reported to Facebook. Facebook has a responsibility to act swiftly and consistently with issues of incitement to violence, and glorifying terrorists in the Middle East certainly qualifies as such.
Additionally, Facebook must be more transparent about what its policies are and how it is enforcing them, equally.
The status quo is insufficient. Facebook, do better.