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LONDON: Tech giant Meta recently announced it will begin removing social media posts that use the term “Zionist” in contexts where it refers to Jewish and Israeli people rather than representing supporters of the political movement, in a bid to curb anti-Semitism on its platforms.

The parent company of Facebook and Instagram had previously said it would lift its blanket ban on the most moderate term across all Meta platforms, “shaheed,” or “martyr” in English, after a year-long review by its oversight board found the approach was “too broad.”

Similarly, TikTok, X, and Telegram have long vowed to step up efforts to limit hate speech and the spread of misinformation on their platforms, against the backdrop of the ongoing war in Gaza.

These initiatives aim to create a safer and less toxic online environment. However, as experts have consistently pointed out, these efforts often fail, resulting in empty promises and a worrying trend towards censorship.

“In short, social media platforms have not been very good at avoiding censorship or curbing hate speech and disinformation about the war in Gaza,” Nadim Nashif, founder and director of 7amleh, a Palestinian digital rights and human rights activist group, told Arab News.

“During the conflict, censorship and account closures also undermined efforts to document human rights abuses on the ground.”

Nashif says hate speech and violence remain “rampant,” particularly on the Meta and X platforms, where anti-Semitic and Islamophobic content continues to “spread widely.”

Since the October 7 attack by Hamas that triggered the conflict in Gaza, social media has been inundated with war-related content. In many cases, it has served as a crucial window into the dramatic events unfolding in the region and has become a vital source of real-time reporting and accountability for Israeli actions.

Accounts supporting the actions of both Hamas and the Israeli government have been accused of sharing misleading and hateful content.

However, none of the social media platforms, including Meta, YouTube, X, TikTok, or messaging apps like Telegram, have publicly outlined policies aimed at mitigating hate speech and violence related to the conflict.

Instead, these platforms remain awash with war propaganda, dehumanizing discourse, genocidal claims, explicit calls for violence, and racist hate speech. In some cases, platforms are removing pro-Palestinian content, blocking accounts, and sometimes shadow-banning users who express support for the people of Gaza.

On Friday, Turkiye's communications authority blocked access to the Meta-owned social media platform Instagram. Local media said the blocking was in response to Instagram's removal of posts by Turkish users expressing condolences over the recent assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

A day earlier, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim accused Meta of cowardice after his Facebook post about Haniyeh's killing was removed. “Let this serve as a clear and unequivocal message to Meta: stop this display of cowardice,” Anwar, who has repeatedly condemned Israel's war in Gaza and its actions in the occupied West Bank, wrote on his Facebook page.

Meanwhile, footage of Israeli soldiers allegedly blowing up mosques and homes, burning copies of the Koran, torturing and humiliating blindfolded Palestinian detainees, transporting them around strapped to the hoods of military vehicles, and celebrating war crimes continues to be freely visible on cell phone screens.

“Historically, platforms have been terrible at moderating content about Israel and Palestine,” Nashif said. “During the war in Gaza and the plausible genocide that’s been going on, that’s just been exacerbated.”

A Human Rights Watch report titled “Meta’s Broken Promises,” released in December, accused the company of “systematic online censorship” and “inconsistent and opaque enforcement of its policies,” and practices that have silenced voices in support of Palestine and Palestinian human rights on Instagram and Facebook.

The report adds that Meta's behavior “fails to meet its human rights due diligence obligations” due to years of unfulfilled promises to address its “excessive repression.”

Jacob Mukherjee, coordinator of the master's programme in political communication at Goldsmiths University of London, told Arab News: “I don't know to what extent you can really call it an effort to stop censorship.

“Meta has promised to conduct several reviews, which, by the way, he has been promising for a couple of years now, since the last flare-up of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2021, before October 7 of last year.

“But as far as I know, not much has changed, fundamentally speaking. They've had to respond to suggestions that they were involved in censorship, of course, but it's been mostly a public relations effort, in my opinion.”

Between October and November 2023, Human Rights Watch documented more than 1,050 removals and other suppressions of content on Instagram and Facebook posted by Palestinians and their supporters, including content about human rights violations.

Of these, 1,049 involved peaceful content in support of Palestine that was censored or otherwise improperly suppressed, while one case involved the removal of content in support of Israel.

However, censorship appears to be only part of the problem.

7amleh’s Violence Indicator, which monitors real-time data on violent content in Hebrew and Arabic on social media platforms, has recorded more than 8.6 million such pieces of content since the conflict began.

Nashif argues that the proliferation of violent and harmful content, predominantly in Hebrew, is largely due to insufficient investment in moderation.

This content, which primarily targeted Palestinians on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, was used by South Africa as evidence in its case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

Meta is likely not alone in being held accountable for what South African lawyers have described as the first genocide to be live-streamed on cell phones, computers and television screens.

X has also been accused by both Palestinian and Israeli supporters of giving carte blanche to profiles known for spreading disinformation and doctored images, often shared by important political and media figures.

“One of the main problems with current content moderation systems is the lack of transparency,” Nashif said.

“When it comes to AI, platforms do not provide clear and transparent information about when and how AI systems are implemented in the content moderation process. Policies are often opaque and leave a lot of leeway for platforms to do what they see fit.”

For Mukherjee, the issue of moderation taking place behind a smokescreen of unclear policies is highly political, requiring these companies to take a “balanced” approach between political pressure and “managing the expectations and desires of the user base.”

He said: “These AI tools can be used in a way to isolate the real power holders, the people who run the platforms, from criticism and accountability, which is a real problem.

“These platforms are private monopolies that are essentially responsible for regulating a significant part of the political public sphere.

“In other words, they are helping to shape and regulate the arena in which conversations happen, in which people form their opinions, in which politicians feel the pressure of public opinion, and yet are completely unaccountable.”

While there have been examples of pro-Palestinian content being censored or removed, as revealed by Arab News in October, these platforms made it clear, well before the Gaza conflict, that it is ultimately not in their interest to remove content from their platforms.

“These platforms were not created for the public interest or to ensure that the public is informed and educated, exposed to a range of perspectives and equipped to make decisions and form opinions appropriately,” Mukherjee said.

“The fact (is) that business models actually want there to be a lot of content, and if it's pro-Palestine content, then so be it. Ultimately, it's still about getting attention and engagement on the platform, and content that elicits strong sentiment, to use the industry term, gets engagement, and that means data and that means money.”