In an open letter published on Facebook's internal site, Tuesday, June 1, reported by the Financial Times, nearly 200 employees of the social network denounce a possible censorship of "pro-Palestine" publications and urge their leaders to take new measures to ensure that pro-Palestinian content is not removed.
"As noted by employees, the press and members of Congress, and as evidenced by our declining rating on the App Store, our users and the community at large feel that we are breaking our promise to protect freedom of expression around the situation in Palestine ", details the text.
The petition, which has collected at least 174 anonymous signatures from Facebook employees, also calls for an external audit on Facebook's measures regarding "Arabic and Muslim" content, as well as the creation of an internal task force to " investigate and address potential bias "in its human and automated social network content moderation systems.
The letter also calls on Facebook to pledge to hire more Palestinians in the company and to publish more data on "government-sponsored content removal requests."
Instagram also concerned
The allegations of censorship of pro-Palestinian content target not only Facebook but also the social network Instagram, which is owned by the group.
In particular, it concerns the situation in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the starting point of the conflict, where Palestinian families were threatened with expulsion in mid-May.
The Sada Social Center, a platform intended to protect content shared by Palestinians on the Internet, had then counted hundreds of restrictions operated by these platforms on subjects related to Sheikh Jarrah and East Jerusalem.
"It is the closing of accounts on Instagram or the blocking of features on Instagram, such as the broadcasting of live videos, or the limitation of access to content," said Eyad Rifai, the director of Sada Social.
>> To see: The inhabitants of the district of Sheikh Jarrah proud to have mobilized all the Palestinians
The Al-Aqsa Mosque, a sacred place for Muslims located on the Mosques esplanade in Jerusalem, where clashes between the Israeli army and Palestinian demonstrators had taken place, in the middle of the month of Ramadan, also appears on the radar of social networks.
Facebook's algorithms, which are supposed to report any post that may violate the platform's rules or incite hatred and violence, removed many posts on the subject in early May, according to the TIME website.
Instagram had also blocked the hashtag #AlAqsa and its Arabic equivalent, # الاقصى.
The blocked hashtag is "#AlAqsa" written in Arabic, the third holiest mosque in Islam that Palestinian folks got stun-grenaded & tear-gassed at during their Ramadan prayer earlier today.
It's like blocking "#StatueOfLiberty" when police are brutalizing innocent people there.
https://t.co/nLkoL6xr9R
- Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) May 8, 2021
Instagram and Facebook subsequently lifted the restriction on these hashtags, complaining about an "error".
According to the BuzzFeed News site, an internal Facebook post explained that the content had been removed because Al-Aqsa "is also the name of an organization sanctioned by the United States government," referring to the armed wing of the United States. Fatah, one of the branches active during the second intifada (2000-2005), referred to as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
During the recent conflict which, from May 10 to 21, killed 254 Palestinians, including 68 children and which left 12 dead on the Israeli side, social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram were widely used by Palestinians, often being their only communication tools in the field.
As early as May 10 and the start of the Israeli army strikes on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza, many Palestinian Instagram users complained that their "stories" about the conflict - named after these fleeting videos and images which only last 24 hours on the platform - be deleted.
The Facebook group attributed this error to a bug "not related to the content itself, but rather to a general technical problem [...], a technical bug that affected the stories, highlights and archives of millions of people in the world, "a Facebook spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday, May 11.
"My publications were systematically deleted"
But the question does not seem to be limited to a computer bug. "A simple hashtag #FreePalestine is likened to a hateful comment by Instagram," Alaa Tramsi, a 23-year-old Gazan, told France 24, who also complains that he was unable to share Gaza posts easily on the network. "Whether it was pictures of damage or of people killed in the bombing, my posts were systematically deleted. So I would try again, I would change the pictures or the hashtag until it finally worked."
Very little justification was given for these post deletions. "I have posted eleven publications in French on Facebook.", Explains to France 24 Rawan N. El Shama, 26, professor of French and member of a feminist association in Gaza, very active on the social network since start of Israeli strikes. "These were images of the damage caused by the bombing and videos in which I explained what was happening in Gaza, giving factual information such as the number of wounded, for example."
And to continue: "I noticed that the first two publications were very shared and commented on but that, subsequently, my friends on Facebook in France no longer saw my publications, they were no longer liked or shared", affirms Rawan .
"Facebook then sent me a warning message, without giving me any further explanation."
Screenshot of a Facebook post: “Account Warning.
If you commit a new offense, your account may be subject to restrictions. ”
© Rawan N. El Shawa
"Well-known Palestinian influencers have advised that we downgrade Facebook and Instagram on app download platforms by giving them only one star, to denounce the fact that Instagram and Facebook have prevented us from testifying." , explains the young woman.
Some Internet users have for their part found ways to bypass Facebook's powerful algorithms, by resurrecting on social networks "an old Arabic writing font, which does not use dots", reports the Middle East Eye site, while others add dots between each letter of words that can pose a problem, or even replace letters with symbols - all techniques intended to defeat censor robots.
Hundreds of pro-Palestinian account deletions
In all, nearly 500 deletions from Instagram and Facebook were documented by the Palestinian NGO 7amleh (Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Networks), at the height of the conflict, between May 6 and May 19.
The NGO also criticized the social network Twitter, claiming that 55 pro-Palestinian content had been blocked.
As part of a campaign called "Facebook, We Need to Talk", the 7amleh organization and more than 30 other human rights organizations called for greater transparency in the social network's decision-making regarding concerns Palestine.
"What we have observed and documented confirms differences in the treatment of pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian publications on social media platforms," said Mona Shtaya, communications manager for the NGO 7amleh, interviewed by France 24.
"The former were not censored, although there were also incitement to violence in the streets against Palestinians and Arabs, while the latter, which documented the human rights violations to which we were exposed, were censored and over-moderated, which confirms the bias of these moderation policies. "
Based on the work of these NGOs, the American Democrat MP Rashida Tlaib published on May 25, a letter denouncing the censorship of Palestinian voices on the main social networks.
“Social media was one of the only places where we were able to get the first testimonies from Palestinians about the occupation and the violence they face. This is why I am writing to urge Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tiktok to stop censorship and ensure that Palestinian voices are heard, "the Democratic representative wrote on Twitter.
Social media has been one of the only places for us to get first-hand accounts from Palestinians about the occupation & violence they face.
That's why I'm writing to urge @Facebook, @instagram, @Twitter & @tiktok_us to cease censorship and ensure Palestinian voices are heard.
pic.twitter.com/ltamvE1uKk
- Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) May 25, 2021
In that letter, Rashida Tlaib asked major social networks to provide a copy of their content moderation policy and expressed concern whether they had "received any contacts from a government regarding posts and accounts on the Palestine".
>> To read:
Joe Biden under pressure from the Democratic left wing over the Palestinian question
Modification of algorithms
After censorship accusations, the social network Instagram was finally forced to modify its algorithm on Sunday, May 30, reports the Financial Times. On Tuesday, June 1, Facebook made amends and recognized "problems" in dealing with the situation in Palestine, while denying any desire for censorship.
“We know that several issues impacted people's ability to share apps. Although we fixed them, they should never have happened. We are sorry to anyone who felt they could not. not draw attention to important events, or who thought it was a deliberate suppression of their voice, "Facebook said, according to the Financial Times. "We design our policies to give everyone a voice while protecting everyone on our apps, and we enforce them equally, no matter who posts or what their personal beliefs are."
Censorship or not, the question is therefore not resolved for the moment, but recent criticisms targeting Facebook already show the extent of the repercussions that failure of content moderation of a social media giants can have. used by billions of people around the world.
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