Through all ways and means, the Israeli occupation had, since its existence, and continues, deliberately and purposefully restricts the Palestinian content that marks the daily suffering and oppression the defenseless Palestinian people are exposed to under unjust policies. The Facebook company, which aligns with the Israeli occupation, promotes illegal and unfair policies to marginalize the Palestinian narrative. Many Palestinian voices have been silenced under the pretext of violating the “Community Guidelines” for Facebook and Instagram– simply for revealing Israeli crimes.
Double standards
Double standards and hypocrisy have become more apparent than any time before since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has recently announced that it has changed its policies regarding combating calls for violence in several countries. This is due to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Meta has allowed posts on Facebook and Instagram to call for violence and death against Putin and Russian soldiers. So Facebook and Instagram allow hate speech and racism to spread as far as they want, depending on their purposes.
Meta declared:
“As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules, like violent speech such as ‘death to the Russian invaders’. We still won’t allow credible calls for violence against Russian civilians.”
Facebook Policies
Many Palestinians have Facebook accounts and are active users. Facebook is the most commonly used social media platform among the young through which they can practice the freedom of expression, spreading information, and forming opinion.
Yet, under flimsy pretexts, the Facebook company has launched systematic campaigns against Palestinian activists to restrict their content that reveals the true story of victims and victimizers. In one way or another, the western media have been trying to hide the brutal crimes and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians for decades.
Palestinian Censorship
Facebook has repeatedly deleted dozens of Facebook accounts and pages and has deleted main news and educational websites that belong to Palestinian activists despite the absence of any violation in many cases.
A large number of social media activists received warnings of the banning and blocking when their posts included words and phrases that support the Palestinian resistance and freedom fighters who defend their land.
It doesn’t make sense to restrict and delete Palestinian activist and journalist content because these individuals are eyewitnesses to the Israeli crimes. The Palestinian content doesn’t incite hatred, racism, insult, discrimination, or violate any guideline of Facebook; it is just documenting Israeli crimes.
It is worth noting that the repeated and systematic banning and deletion practiced by the Facebook administration has negatively affected the Palestinian narrative. Those accounts, pages, and websites are the primary sources of news and information. Facebook administration has caused significant losses, as tens of thousands of followers — the work of years– disappeared permanently.
Last year, Facebook permanently deleted Palestinian media outlets pages, including the 16th October Group and Palestinian Eve Network, as part of a large-scale campaign against Palestinian content. Those media outlets post news and reports about the difficult circumstances in Palestine under occupation. They advocate for the legal resistance against an armed occupation which is established in international law. However, Palestinians don’t surrender, and again the supervisors of those outlets have opened new pages and started from scratch to work hard to let their voice be heard to the whole world.
Solutions
Still, with all their might, the Palestinian activists faced those policies. And they have exerted all their efforts to show the whole world the suffering and neglect of the Palestinian people. Some activists have tried to circumvent Facebook’s algorithms. It was useful using commas or symbols between letters, words, and phrases that support the Palestinian content. Words such as Gaza, Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah, and Hamas were the focus of attention by Facebook.
Social media activists have also tried another way to disguise the Arabic language to deceive the algorithms of Facebook and Instagram. The method depends on writing the text in Arabic without dots (used to indicate pronunciation of consonants). The text is entered on one of the applications and converted to another alternative without dots. However, it can be read easily. Those methods not only prevent banning or blocking but also ensure access to so many people.
Principles are indivisible
As it usually happens, Facebook shows contradiction to its rules. Their principles are divisible. They incite violence, hatred, and killing in the one case. On the other hand, posts and pages which defend the Palestinians’ rights and document Israeli crimes are deleted and silenced. When Palestinians are supporting their cause and promoting their just narrative.
The American government fully supports the Israeli occupation and opposes the Palestinian people from under the table. Facebook, therefore, is in line with American imperial policy, which is clear and obvious. And that is what is happening in the context of the Ukrainian war. The U.S is against Russia; hence, to serve its interest, it has used Facebook to promote hate speech against Putin and Russian soldiers.
I wonder why Facebook is as hypocritical as Congress?
Again there is no similarity to Ukraine russia and Israel Palestinians. The Palestinians continually call for the destruction and delegitimization of a UN member state. So in this scenario they are akin to Russia spreading false information in order to destroy their neighbor. The Palestinians could have a state of their own but choose strategically to work for the destruction of Israel instead. This immoral stance is not tolerated by much of the western world.