The Palestinian Observatory of Digital Rights Violations has recorded more than 1,350 instances of online censorship from major platforms through an open call on their website through July 1, 2024, with most of the reports related to Meta, TikTok, X, and Youtube.
The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media (7amleh) interpreted these results in a September report as a “deliberate decision” to “aggressively over-moderat(e) Palestine-related content”.
“When online platforms allow hate speech and incitement on their platforms, they could be guilty of helping spread content that dehumanizes Palestinians and justifies their collective punishments,” the report reads.
Human Rights Watch previously documented how users had their content blocked or removed by Meta in a report released last December. Users would first have a single post, story or comment that referenced Palestine reviewed then removed with little to no explanation pointing to a specific policy breach, according to Rasha Younes, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch.
Then, Younes said they heard from users who had their accounts restricted from commenting on other pro-Palestine content or disabled for anywhere from 24 hours to three months. There are others who described being “shadowbanned,” the idea that their posts were less visible to other users on both Instagram and Facebook, Younes continued.
For those that are blocked, Younes said they “might not have any place to go” to express their political activism or lived reality during the conflict.
Both HRW and 7amleh’s reports rely on direct user experiences, but researchers from both groups want to push social media companies like Meta to release data about which posts are being blocked by automatic moderation so they can do more in-depth research.
“What we’re seeing is people who work in these companies, they want these changes … but unfortunately they are not the decision-makers, so they can’t really change anything,” Taysir Mathlouthi, 7amleh’s EU Advocacy Officer, told Euronews Next.