Because of interests with Israel .. Facebook accused of fighting Palestinian content

An international research institution has accused Israel of using its relations with Facebook to "fight" Palestinian content in cyberspace.

Impact International Human Rights Policy, in a report, linked Palestinian complaints of "Facebook restrictions" on their content and the existence of economic interests linked to Israel.

Facebook has recently grown into a huge company that employs tens of thousands of people, and as it expands its customers, it has sought to expand beyond its national borders.

Providing regional headquarters locations for multinational companies, such as Facebook, offers them several advantages such as attracting more investment, creating jobs and linking workers there with all kinds of experience with other national and multinational companies working there.

The Foundation's Executive Director Maha Al-Husseini pointed out that Israel hosted a regional headquarters for Facebook, which allowed it to have an increasing influence on the Palestinian content.

Al-Husseini cautioned against the complaint of the Palestinian social media platforms "repeatedly" about restricting the content on Facebook, "which can be linked to the Israeli pressure on the international company."

She talked about the frequent visits of senior officials of Facebook and Israel and the conclusion of agreements between them on the pretext of fighting incitement, which resulted in severe restriction of Palestinian content at a time rarely dealt with "Israeli" who calls for the spread of hatred and propaganda against the Palestinians.

Impact International stressed that multinational corporations such as Facebook "must abide by their own ethical rules that call for the promotion of freedom of expression, rejection of hatred and violence and respect for human dignity and life."

Recently, according to specialized documentation issued by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (Mada) that Facebook has closed since the beginning of this year dozens of pages for Palestinian journalists and activists from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mada said in a report that "most of the closed pages enjoy wide follow-up, and the owners did not receive any advance warnings, or explanations justifying Facebook's move to close."

He condemned Facebook's "massive campaign" on Palestinian media pages, calling it "a grave and serious violation of media freedoms and a response to Israel's positions on what it considers incitement against it or against its policies and military."

In a related context, the Center "Sada Social" - in a monthly report - that the Facebook administration "continues to restrict Palestinian content, disregarding all professional and human rights standards and ethics in dealing with Palestinian content and privacy as a people under occupation."

PCHR monitored more than 17 violations of Palestinian content on the websites in August, most of them on Facebook.

In June last year, the Israeli Ministry of Justice revealed that in 2017, Facebook's administration responded to nearly 85% of Israel's requests to remove, ban and submit data on Palestinian content on the site.

In April, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported a major Facebook investment in Israel's AI operations through a new research and development center designed to help the engineers and programmers of the US company and beyond.

Facebook is one of more than 300 multinational companies that have opened research and development facilities in Israel.

The Palestinians complain that Israel is working - in agreement and cooperation with the departments of the websites, especially Facebook - to fight the Palestinian content, especially the wide ban on the accounts of Palestinian journalists and activists on the pretext of inciting terrorism.

Israel has arrested more than 350 Palestinians in 2018, including journalists and writers, for leaflets, slogans or posters and photos of dead and prisoners on Facebook pages, and sometimes for sharing and admiring other publications.